53 days to go

I had the honour of pressing the starting klaxon for the Commonwealth Flotilla today. That was on the "Clyde Clipper" as we left the East India Dock in Greenock and the next four hours were fantastic - an amazing trip "up the watter" to the basin by the Glasgow Science Centre.

I took lots of pictures and tweeted regularly throughout the journey. It has been hard to choose just one, but this in the end was what I thought expressed the experience best - the front of the flotilla entering the dredged channel of the Clyde .

it does not, however, show the sheer scale of the fleet - 250 boats which took well over an hour to come into the pontoons when we reached Glasgow.

Many congratulations to RYA Scotland for thinking of this and then making it happen with help from, amongst others, the Scottish Government, Glasgow Life , Inverclyde Council and Visit Scotland.

I have posted some further pictures of the event to my Flickr account and others can be found on my Twitter feed @Feorlean.

There was at least one other blipper on board and I am sure many others on shore so there will be plenty of images to be found.