On the 1st of July we left St. Katherine Docks, descending the lock under a blackening sky, and leaving Tower Bridge and its giant Olympic Rings to recede. Friends had braved the chill breeze in shorts and jumpers to help us with the lines, their sunglasses an optimistic sham. We had exchanged hopes of a reunion in Falmouth in a few weeks time, but it is hard to keep to a definite plan at sea, so perhaps those were our last goodbyes. We left them there, those marvellous and kindly people of the sea, with their own ambitions, their own plans, two years after arriving. Despite our long preparations - the courses and exams, the fixing and repairing, the search for the boat in the first place, the endless ordering and collecting of things, the practice
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