Dynamo anniversary fleet has departed for Dunkirk

Early this morning, at 7am, the first few boats prepared to leave for Dunkirk



Soon there was a steady stream leaving Ramsgate Royal Harbour



In spite of the weather (pouring down with rain!) there was a large supportive crowd



who, even though it was thoroughly wet and freezing...



cheered on each little ship with waving, clapping and the occasional shout of 'Hurrah' !



ship owners and crew themselves waved also and frequently hooted their horns



two flagbearers were standing in a silent salute (the entire hour it took for all the ships to leave!)





Thames Barge 'Greta' lowered her flags..



and cast off her moorings whilst MTB102 (see previous post) is leading the way. The place where the man in yellow stands is where Churchill sat in 1944 whilst overseeing the D-Day landings (there are two grey airvents there with a little bench inbetween)



The stream of those departing went on and on..



Duly filmed by the man from ITN (here filming the Greta leave the harbour)



Our modern Ramsgate based RNLI rescue joined the flotilla



as well as the old style rescue boat 'William & Kate Johnston' which is now in trust and teaching young sailors to sail



Last but not least, Rafael, who was there with me, was looking at a little friend on a higher tier, and I could not resist snapping her sweet little face...



It was extremely wet and quite cold but the atmosphere was fantastic, the sailors in good spirit, the public generous in their support. A worthy occassion.


Update: Local historian and bookshop owner Michael Child has been out and about taking an enormous lot of pictures, to which he has several links on his website. He kindly commented here and gave permission for a link to his site to be posted;
http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/pictures-of-dunkirk-little-ships.html
Thanks Michael!