Cosgrove

Cosgrove, Grand Union Canal – Thursday 30 May 2013

Today has been a good day; it rained early in the morning but had stopped by 08:00 when I was ready to go.  Although not sunny and decidedly not May temperatures rain held off.  I have travelled 19 miles, 1 tunnel and 8 locks.  The tunnel was the Blisworth one with 5 boats passing me, one of them ruined my ‘night vision’ because it’s tunnel light was a massive searchlight aimed down the centre of the tunnel, and lighting up about 100 metres – obviously they could see but boats approaching them were blinded.  My measurement was not guess work; I based it on when I could see my shadow on the wall!!  At Stoke Bruerne top lock I saw Braidbar no 112 ‘Sir James’ and then went down the flight with ‘Hampton’ which is an old Fellowes, Morton & Clayton butty that was given hydraulic propulsion power by a previous owner.  The holiday season seems to have started although a bit late – there have been dozens of boats going the other way.  At one stage I was held up by a ‘Day Boat’ that was pootling along with all the crew looking at the wildlife – I had to keep going out of gear as I couldn’t go as slowly as they were, once I even had to go in reverse.  The steerer knew I was behind but it took him over an hour to ask if I wanted to pass.  When I’d gone past another boat also passed him.

There have been lots of waves from other boaters who recognised me (or ‘Ice Breaker’) from Crick, ‘Tempus Fugit’ and ‘Underneath the Archers’ just two.

What a surprise - the rain has started again.