We boarded Seabourn Legend a bit after midday and quickly settled into our temporary new home.

From the ship we had a great view of the Walkie Talkie building, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

At about 4.15pm we cast off from HMS Belfast, where we were docked and headed to the open Tower Bridge with the ship’s PA system blaring out “Rule Brittania”.  It was an amazing feeling to be sailing under the Tower Bridge and see the rush hour traffic banked up as far as the eye could see.

The trip down the river was interesting particularly when we passed through the Thames Barrier, a flood mitigation system.