Monday 25 June 2012

The Big One (13-2)



Monday 25th June 2012



Ventnor Farm Marina to Warwick Ring Road Bridge No 43


A bit of a lay in today, but we were woken by the first passing boat of the day at 7:15 when a boat and butty passed by. We were eventually underway by 11am. The sky was overcast first thing, but by noon the sun was up, it was very warm by mid afternoon. 

The first three locks we did on our own until we caught up with a hire boat. We shared the next seventeen locks with them. They were all new to boating and on the first day of their first ever trip.  The Memsahib gave some tuition to the crew who had little idea of what they needed to do to operate a lock. By the end of the next seventeen locks the Memsahib had been renamed by them to wonder woman. 

By the time that we left them, the hire crew were a great deal happier with dealing with the locks. I gave a few tips on handling the boat to Kevin on the tiller and how to go about sharing locks and being aware of the cill. We may run into them tomorrow as we attack the Hatton flight.


This morning I spent an hour making some checks in the engine bay checking fluid levels and belt tensions. Then I turned my attention to making a belt out of a selection of wild herbs. However, in the end it turned out to be a waist of thyme.


Wildlife: The best birding spot of the day were a pair of Kite's and several single Buzzards drifting along circling on the thermals. Quite a good number of Chaffinch and Goldfinch haunting the canal side hedgerow. The aaah! spot of the day was seeing a Moorhen nest with some out and some just breaking out of their eggshells.



Daily Total
Miles: 10.2
Locks: 20
Swing / Lift Bridges: 0
Tunnels: 0
Pump Outs: 0
Engine Hours: 0.0



Accumulated Totals
Miles: 951.9
Locks: 715
Swing / Lift Bridges: 117
Tunnels: 6
Pump Outs: 10
Engine Hours: 2200.0



Later......






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