Incoming guests were delighted to find the Caledonian Star berthed alongside the World War II cruiser HMS Belfast in the middle of the River Thames upstream of Tower Bridge, the famous London landmark. Only very rarely does this bridge now open for passing ships, and those guests who stayed up past midnight were delighted to see this floodlit marvel of Victorian hydraulic engineering operating specially for our ship. Some of us earlier visited nearby St. Katherine's Dock, with its magnificent collection of sailing ships, and visited the nearby Tower of London, home of the Crown Jewels.
Following our departure from our berth, we cruised downstream past the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and through the newly constructed Thames Barrage, heading past the white cliffs of Dover for Sark and Alderney in the Channel Islands.
