Both David and I were up at 0715 to prepare for being towed through Standedge Tunnel. Everything off the roof, gas switched off, battery master switch off (if I recall correctly). Then BW put loads of rubber mats on the four boats that would be in our convoy, and joined the boats together with floating wedges. At 0900 we were off, towed by an electric tug. All crews were in the passenger module, a very un-narrowboat-like brightly lit plastic tub, more like a carriage of a tube train. There was a BW man at the helm of each narrowboat in the convoy, for steering and (mainly) to fend off from the walls of the tunnel.
The trip through was fascinating, and one of the highlights of the cruise. We were in the oldest of the four parallel tunnels. A BW van drove slowly through a neighbouring bore tracking our progress (for "safety" reasons). Every so often communication would be established via a connecting cross-tunnel. We saw the chisel marks made when the tunnel was constructed in the early nineteenth century, and ancient distance markers. The electric tug didn't seem too reliable: we stopped at least once for the steering mechanism to be fixed!
All to soon - 1130 - we emerged into daylight at Marsden. BW insisted on locking us down the next few locks, so it was good that we'd explored Marsden the previous day. Many pounds were very shallow. We stopped for ice cream at a floating tea room, and moored at Slaithwaite/Linthwaite at 2030. Had chilli con carne for tea.
Milage/lockage to follow!
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