Cruising through all weathers

• Mooring
• On our travels

Haven’t we been having some beautiful weather recently? In fact, it is the first really sunny, warm weather we have had as we were away last year when summer happened – early. However, it was proceeded by some very gusty spells.

Blue mat on stern deck

This is a picture of the matting we have on our stern deck:

Interlocking, blue sections. Highly expensive they were supplied by Aldi (or it may have been Lidl) at great cost of about £7. However, it is quite light and recently we have twice discovered bits missing (the middle bit the first time and the right hand bit the second). A nuisance, but not exactly a disaster. However, on both occasions we found the missing bits – in the first case a mile down the canal and after a lock, in the second jammed against another boat near the top of a lock. Now we take it in if it is getting a bit windy.

On the subject of being windy, we are currently on what is called the “Middle Levels Navigation”. It is a passage through the fens of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk and is rather flat. It is also rather exposed and it quickly becomes obvious why there are so many wind turbines here.

Moored to a tree

The mooring we are currently on – you can see it on the left photo – was marked on our maps as a typical 36 hour mooring and was located ideally for us to make a quick run to the locks that will take us through onto the tidal Great Ouse and then onto the non-tidal Great Ouse tomorrow. In fact, there are no other options after this. So, when we got here and saw the mooring it was rather – disappointing. It is rather old and rickety. Not only that, but there are no rings, bollards or cleats to tie onto. Add to that the fierce side wind (maybe a gale) from the left and we were faced with quite a challenge. It was the toughest mooring we have ever faced. I managed to get Helen onto the deck, but with nothing to tie onto, we had to improvise quickly. Fortunately there are a couple of benches hidden in the long grass and she was able to get the rope around one of these and hang on tightly  (her hands were a bit sore afterwards). That enabled me to eventually bring the stern in and tie off to another bench. We moved the bow line to tie onto a nearby tree and the centre line to a signpost and are now safely secured – we hope. However, we are bouncing about rather a lot.

Brandy Pad and Copperkins at Braunston

Recently, we had the pleasure of meeting up with our friends Rob and Susan on their narrowboat “Copperkins ll”. It was Rob and Susan that invited us to stay on their boat with them over New Year several times and that educated us about what to expect in the winter. Valuable experience that has served us well.

Lastly, a few photos from the last few days of sunshine on the River Nene. Click on them (and any of the others) for a bigger version:

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.