The fastest boat on the river?

I’m having a day off from my challenge today. I did go for a walk earlier, on this very rainy day, but it was to Greenwich Park. And I did see the Isle of Dogs from a brilliant angle, high up on the hill in the park. I didn’t take any photos though because I was having a walking coffee and chat with a friend. A rare treat for these times right now!

When we were looking down on the river below, one of the police boats passed and I was reminded of an evening this week when I was standing around waiting for a time lapse and two children passed by with their dad. The little girl, around 6, was desperate to chat and just launched in straight away with a question to get the conversation going. Her little brother, around two, on a seat at the back of his dad’s bike watched for a while and then felt brave enough to chip in with his own story about seeing the police boat. I got his excitement because there’s nothing more exhilarating than seeing the police boat whiz past on the Thames. Especially when the wake is flying up around them in a splash of white.

So for my image today, I found this earlier shot of a police boat taken off the west side of the Isle of Dogs.

It was round about the same spot last summer that I happened to film a boy being rescued from the river by a service boat called the Heiko, after its captain pulled off a dramatically tight turn and manoeuvred right next to the lad so that the crew could do an equally brilliant job of pulling him out. The company who own the boat contacted me out of the blue this week to ask if they could post the video to their social media and of course I said yes. If you’d like to see the rescue, click here to view it on my YouTube channel Dramatic Rescue by the Crew of the Heiko

Loren x

Police boat Gabriel Franks II on the river Thames, London