It has been a long, hard struggle, lurching from one disaster to another, constantly working on the boats but not being able to go anywhere on them.
We decided that, having sorted the raw water out and with our new inverter and wiring set-up to try out, a cruise down river was in order.
We set off on Thursday afternoon, stopped briefly to buy some new chunky mooring pins from Cap'n Bill at Willy Watts chandlery.
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| A typical Nen guillotine lock, the lock landings are fairly short, tucked in, and with a very unforgiving wall in front of you! LOL! |
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It is normal for the river water to be flowing over the gate, as the guillotine is left open to allow it to flow out.
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| This is Ringstead Lower lock and it has been converted to electrically powered. You need an Environment Agency 'abloy' key, Glenda has started wearing it on a lanyard, as it is easy to leave it behind if another boater says they'll take over the lock. Here Glenda is at the control panel. The guillotine is always left in the raised position on leaving the lock (the gates are left closed). |
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| Thursday night at the Nine Arch Bridge moorings in Thrapston. Getting in and out can be a problem, if there are too many boats breasted up, there is no room to wind, so you have to either reverse in (preferable) or reverse out, which can be tricky as the flow will take you towards the bridge. |
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| N.B. 'Bo The Red Box' (bothered box) |
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| A nice spot in a dead end, one of the picnic benches has suffered from vandalism unfortunately, but there is a water point (not very many on the river) |
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| Info on the Nine Arch Bridge and the surrounding area |
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| A young heron visited us. |
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| Glenda and I had a nice barbeque and then used it as a pit fire and invited the crews from N.B.s Bo The Red Box and Lady Galadriel to join us around the fire. |
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| Our solar powered fairy lights have come on ;o) and it was a really nice chatty evening. |
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Glenda takes the helm, the exhaust chimney is wonky because we caught it on a branch as we negotiated the low footbridge at Islip (keep left downstream and keep right upstream)
On the way to Ashton we saw a poor little shag with a fishing hook in it's beak and with tackle hanging down on his chest.
At Wadenhoe we encountered an old ex-working boat getting into all kinds of difficulty, it was wedged under a tree with lots of people and kids on the roof. Glenda got the lock ready and opened the gate on my side, they hovered outside and asked if they could share the lock? I said yes, none of them jumped off to help, "Can we go in first?" "LOL! bugger off! You need to open the gate on your side first" |
