Great Haywood Sunday 27 July 2014

We actually arrived at the boat at about 11 pm last night but decided not to move until today.

As we were picked up by “Enterprise Car Hire” last week we left in bit of a rush so two things happened.
One
I left the electricity main switches on, which also meant the inverter was running all week. We do have two small solar panels so they saved the day but and the Stirling gauge showed a deficit of 5ah over the week.
Two
I dropped my glasses down between the pontoon and the boat, so I brought a landing net back with me and had a good trawl around without any luck.

A little after 10 we left our berth and headed through the marina towards the canal. At the service wharf (extreme left of the photo) was a boat called “third Time Lucky” on the extreme right of the photo there is another boat, also called “Third Time Lucky”.

It was dead on 1030 am when we pulled out of the marina and turned left along the Trent and Mersey canal meeting 10 boats in the first hour. We had just entered Armitage Tunnel when the tenth boat arrived at the end of the narrows so he had to wait. At the long term moorings by the end of the narrows this chap/lady is holding a glass to passing boaters.

We stopped at the Rugeley water point, needless to say there was a boat already there who had just arrived with empty water tanks so we were a little while, but we put the time to good use by both having a shower as the water was now hot and when we filled the tank we replenished it. By the time we had filled our tank another boat had arrived for water so he had to wait a few minutes, turned out he was a Norfolk boy as well. We pushed on and moored by Tesco’s in Rugeley. I had a slight problem with the local Duck population as they wanted to swim around my stern while I wanted to go backwards. Luckily a boat was leaving as we arrived so we were reasonably close and regardless of what the signs say you can wheel a trolley as far as the bridge. When we were ready to leave the canal was getting busy again and several boats came towards us but few passed going the way we were.

At Taff Wharf, bridge 69 we passed this boat but we were OK for diesel, but will keep them in mind for our return. I don’t think they can have an engine in it looking how high it is in the water.

Needless to say there was a boat waiting at Colwich Lock so we had to tuck in behind them and wait not only till they had gone up but also until one came down. Then things improved an a boat came into sight as we were leaving the lock so we could leave the gate open, he spent some time blowing his horn, he obviously doesn’t know me because there is no way I would waste energy closing a gate if there was a boat anywhere in the area coming towards my, its one of life’s bonuses.

We carried on after the lock, we were planning to try and moor at the junction but decided to pull in near the Hall for the night at about 4 30 pm. There are loads of vacant moorings along here but its full above the next lock by the junction.

Of all the boats we have met today they were about 50/50 hire and private, but we didn’t see that many boats with school age children on them so not sure what impact school holidays actually have on boating numbers, but for some reason it always seems a lot busier in the holidays, maybe they are all school teachers. Today’s Journey some 10 miles and one lock in nice sunshine.