Not a wise move ….

Tuesday 16^th July; Claydon locks to the radio mast mooring

This is such a lovely peaceful mooring!  We have stayed here many times.

 We washed the starboard side before we left.  Two boats passed on their way to the locks before we set off, shortly before 10.  By the time we got there, the bottom lock had nearly emptied itself, and the next was half full.  There is still a great deal of work needed here to stop the loss of water.  Thereafter, we met boats coming down at each lock.

By the time we reached the top there was a queue developing to come down.  Three workmen were hard at work at the top lock cottage, so it looks as though it has at last been sold.  With the only road access two locks down the flight, a lot of potential buyers would have lost interest.

Boats passed us regularly on their way to Cropredy and though we weren’t counting we guessed there had been more than 20 during the morning.  Some boats clearly don’t move much though – how do the owners even get around the boat with all those plants?

The bottom of the top pound was rather too close to the top in some places.  I don’t think cattle cooling off helps matters as the silt they disturb will eventually find its way into the main channel.

We made our slow way through Fenny ex-tunnel, and paused in a wide bit to let an oncoming boat get by; he warned us about the ‘road works’ up ahead, where the boat following him had grounded.  New piling is being installed along a section of towpath which slants quite steeply toward the edge anyway but I seem to remember the edge was breaking up too.

The large gap is being filled by dredgings (hurray!)  so I imagine it will be taped off for a while as it settles.  But then maybe it will be suitable for mooring.

Squishy dredgings by the armco

Both the piledriver and dredger had to stop work each time a boat passed – they must have had a very disrupted morning’s work.  We stopped at Fenny Marina to fill up with fuel and dispose of rubbish, then moored a little way further on for lunch.  It was pretty hot now, so we were hoping to moor for the night at the footbridge between 131 and 132, the ‘Wedding Bridge’, where there is shade.  But water levels were at least a foot down

And some people clearly had had difficulty getting moored – no armco, stern hanging out, mooring pins are such a faff – why not use those handy branches? 

Filling the fuel tank it transpired, had been a foolish thing to do.  We found we couldn’t get within a foot of the bank at Wedding Bridge, and as Dave wanted to do some work on the port gunwale we moved on.  We tried 5 places in all and were getting a bit concerned by the time we had got to bridge 130 and were delighted – and astonished – to find the shady mooring at the radio masts stretch not only free, but with enough depth to pull right in to the armco!  As it was shady the boat was not too hot for me to get some baking done.  Dave prepped and masked the gunwale and gave it a coat of red-ox.

Boats continued to pass in both directions till the evening and we were rather surprised to still have a fifty yard gap between us and the next moored boat.  These moorings are often pretty crowded.  We had some little visitors who were getting their feathers but are still quite a way from being able to fly.

Dear little stubby wings

I was just ten minutes away from dishing up our evening meal when the gas ran out.  Dave was conveniently putting his painting things away at the time so the canister was quickly changed.

5 locks, 6½ miles