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Monday 11 April 2011

Back onboard at last 11 April 2011

We left Suffolk this morning in bright sunshine, it continued like this all the way along the A 14 to where we turned off at Junction 1, it even stayed with us until we reached Southam at 1 30 and then it clouded over with thick heavy clouds. These stayed with us until gone 4 pm.
We gave Harnser a quick check over and then turned her round to face south and moved over to the towing path side to load up and get the dog onboard. There were several boats travelling in each direction and we waited until the hire boat "Sunset" to pass before setting off ourselves at 2 pm. We followed "Sunset" up the Marston Dole locks and then passed them when they pulled in for water just above the locks.
It wasn't long before it started to drizzle but luckily it didn't last long. We met several boats as we made our way south, a couple of them in bridge holes of course. Oakfield was moored by the radio mast at Wormleighton and was mid way through an oil change as we passed, you can guess who was working the vacuum pump to suck the oil out.
We moored for the night a short way before Fenny Wharf at 5-30 in pleasant sunshine and it wasn't long before "Sunset" came plodding passed the row of moored boats only to meet a boat coming the other way as they were about to pass us, this wasn't made any easy by us being moored on the bend with our bum sticking out a bit and the hire boat going north being well away from the offside bank.
It was here that we saw our first clutch of ducklings of the season, unfortunately a swan took a great dislike to one of the parent ducks and tried its hardest to grab and drowned it.

2 comments:

Adam said...

Sunset, isn't it?

Ken and Sheena said...

Swans are bullies. I've gone right off them since I saw one drown three tiny ducklings. People were throwing stones at it, to try and shoo it off, but it didn't take any notice. Herons are even worse. Nature can be so cruel, sometimes.

Glad you're back onboard safely, anyway. Give magic some fuss from us. Cheers...