One of the nice things about cruising in company is that there's always an air-conditioned space to retreat from the heat of a summer's morning. That is of course providing the company one is travelling with has an air conditioner aboard, which in this case they certainly did.
It is fair to say that by the time we rustled ourselves into action some time after lunch quite a crowd had gathered, mostly to marvel at the wonders of the new acclimatisation machine, but also to scrounge coffee and whatever else was on the go in air conditioned comfort. Eventually they were coerced into at least moving off the boat where they gathered in a little cluster of mostly blokes at the sterns of our boats.
Ron seized the opportunity and started Tiara's engine.
"You can hardly hear the motor Ron" was all I could hear above the murmurings of approval on the dock.
"Clear Prop!" I called, in case any of them had taken to the water when I wasn't watching, and contemporaneously the good Captain scurried to the stern to ensure that none were in the firing line of Mr Perkins impending spluttering. The crowd roared in a jocular sort of laugh as though the punchline of the world's funniest joke had just been offered. So loudly did they laugh that we could hear them over Mr P's guttural roar. Thankfully we couldn't watch them falling about through the clouds we were creating, so Mr P and we ignored their unkindness and glided smoothly if not silently and invisibly down to the river, where the very first tones of Autumn were beginning to show.
Our homeward journey had truly begun.
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