‘Hold tight!” came the call from Gabriele in the driver’s cabin.
I looked left to see a Thames Clipper river bus carving through the grey slosh. If anything was going to capsize our boat on its first outing on London’s great river, it would be this. A killer whale of a vessel to our paddling turtle.
The Clipper sculpted waves and threw them in our direction, like a bully unsettling a nervous swimmer. Some of the commuters gave us a wave, too, although it felt like more of an ominous “farewell” than the intended “hello”.
As the waves rolled towards our boat, Olivia and I needed to act. We cut short our re-enactment of Jack and Rose on the front of the Titanic and squatted low on the wet surface, clinging on to the metal railings.
“My white trousers are getting muddy,” she said, her hair frantic in the wind.
“They’ll be clean again when we’re thrown into the river,” I replied, only half joking, as the boat tilted, hung suspended in mid-air, and then slapped back on to the water.
Like all good love stories, this one was born against the odds. Before I saw Ripple, I knew nothing about boats and had zero desire to own one. Boats were for rich yachting types, or for canal people with dreadlocks who showered in cold, brown water. But after I saw this little vessel on Regent’s Canal two summers ago, with a scribbled “For Sale” sign in the window, everything changed.