The weather is holding …..

Trip 51

Wednesday 12th September; Calcutt Marina to Long Itchington

Now the schools have gone back the roads were free of holiday traffic and we arrived at the marina by 2.  By 3 we had unloaded, paid the mooring fee and left the marina.  A young great crested grebe was fishing as we left.  It was managing to stay down as long as an adult and had clearly learnt to swim underwater as it popped up from its dives quite a way away from where it disappeared.  It didn’t catch anything though.

It’s still got its baby stripes, though its tufty bits on top are starting to grow.

Every now and then a boat or two came along from Stockton locks, so we thought if there was anyone ahead of us they would probably be on their way down by the time we got there.  The arm at Willow Wren was being extended last time we were along here, and now it looks finished.  The steam-boat Adamant is now moored in the arm rather than online.

Two boats were emerging from Stockton top lock as we approached, which was lucky.  We knew there was nobody behind us to share with, which was not so lucky, but never mind.  The sun was shining and the locks weren’t leaking much so we soon got a good rhythm going with Dave doing some of the work while I went ahead to open a paddle to top up the next lock.  There was a slight hitch when one lock had emptied – one of the boats going up hadn’t fully closed a bottom paddle and it was a little while before I noticed.  How they managed to open the top gates without realising I don’t know.

We had another slight delay when a single hander had locked ahead - with a bridge obscuring his view he hadn’t seen us coming down the lock above.  But it wasn’t long before we were cracking on again.  Should we stop at the Blue Lias?  There was just about room, but two boats were emerging from the next lock so on we went.  There were a lot of people on the gates – I recognised one of them, the skipper of the hotel boat WB Tranquil Rose.  It was below the lock – pointing away from the lock, having just descended – and he and his crew were waiting for a chance to turn round and go back up again!  Tranquil Rose had been stuck a bit further on, under bridge 24, for an hour and a half.   He has travelled up to Warwick many times so it was quite a surprise.  CRT had attended and they thought there might be something underwater that had prevented them getting through – Tranquil Rose is 11’ wide and the bridge is 12’, so it doesn’t have a lot of space.  They had managed to get out backwards, as even if they had got through they didn’t want to risk getting stuck again on the return journey.  So they were helping boats through the lock till there was a gap in traffic and they could turn.

He was letting the narrowboat which had arrived just as they got free go up ahead, which was a very decent thing to do.

We could have moored outside one or other of the pubs below the bottom lock, but it’s a bit close to the busy road for our liking.  There was room after the bridge further away from the road, so we stopped there.  Dave went for a walk with Meg and found plenty of blackberries just near bridge 26.

3 miles 10 locks.