Tuesday
We set off at 9-30 am, we should have left earlier and found ourselves in a queue at the locks for most of the day. At the Bishop Meadow bridge we shared with a full length boat, he found it a tight fit, bow fender against the cill and the stern as near to centre as I could let him come over. Once in, unfortunately his crew opened the gate paddle which shot water straight into the front cockpit, even more unfortunate was the fact that the front doors were wide open and the accommodation floor level a fair bit lower than the cockpit floor. They were still mopping up at the next lock. By now it was obvious that it was going to be a slow day, a few boats coming down who took ages to untie before coming into the lock and then even longer getting all the ropes off to come out. Some of those in front were not the fastest in the world ether, wandering up to the lock forgetting to take a windlass etc. attaching lots of string before closing gates.
We had quite a good run through Loughborough and pulled over to take water by The Boat at Meadow Lane bridge but it was out of use, so we filled up at Barrow Mill Basin, it was just after this that a couple off a new boat said "we almost called our boat Harnser, but saw your web site" It turned out they lived about 8 miles from us before becoming live aboard's.
At Junction Lock it rained, hailed, thundered and lightening, as we were going to moor within a couple of miles or so we decided to pull over and moor above the lock, as soon as we tied up the rain stopped and the smoke from a bonfire drifted right across the boat so we decided to carry on to Birstall where we had originally planned to spend the night on the town moorings below the lock. The first attempt at mooring close behind a boat already there was a failure due to underwater obstructions and we finally tied up at 5-20 pm about 40 feet further along. Now all the passing boats will say " Look at that inconsiderate boater, he could have moored close to the next boat to make more space.
You will find our latest position at
http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route
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