We enjoyed a leisurely cruise to Fazeley this morning, stopping at David and Mary's for coffee (both) and lunch (just David), on board. On the way I photographed the work boats at the usual place between the aqueduct and Fazeley Junction.
I am intrigued by the numbers on the side. Are they centimetres, showing the draught of the boat?
But why do the numbers extend above the dropped sides of the boat? If it were loaded to the 70 line it would sink!
We couldn't get very close to David and Mary's mooring as it hasn't been dredged for a long time, so David did what David often does, which is to get in the water. Feeling with his feet and poking around with a rake revealed that the canal was more-or-less uniformly shallow; there was no single object preventing us coming against the side.
At about 1530 we went the short distance along the Birmingham and Fazeley to Fazeley Mill Marina to fill up with diesel, after which we contemplated doing another couple of hours' cruising towards Fradley. Then the rain came. We were rather glad we had stayed; we had a repeat of the heavy rain of two days ago but with more thunder and lightning.
D+M kindly invited us for tea which was very tasty. Jan made a coffee and walnut cake for pudding. Also very tasty.
When we returned to the boat we found our Nicholson's Guide 3 swimming in a puddle of water on the table. The rain had been so heavy that it had bounced off the roof and in through the mushroom vent. Fortunately this doesn't seem to have happened with the vent over the bed. Equally - or even more - fortunately the computer wasn't on the table, and my camera, which was on the table, remained dry as it just missed the puddle. One thing it shows, though, is that the boat isn't listing any more! I have interleaved half a roll of paper towel between the pages of the Nicholson's in an attempt to dry it out. We'll be needing the worst-affected section tomorrow, the Trent and Mersey, which is at the back of the book and therefore the wettest.
4 comments:
Re your damaged guide... if you need a few pages photoing (spelling?) and turning into a pdf files, just shout - I've a nifty app on my phone that enables me to photo things, shrink to pdf and email them all in one.
regards, Mark.
Mark, that's very kind of you, but when the pages have dried out I'll just get used to a crinkly version. Thanks for your offer.
There is a certain amount of character in crinkly pages. You should see my Parkers for the BCN which submerged twice in a canoe. The mushroom vent in the butty does the same thing - I cant see it leaking around the base so it has to be splashback.
Andy, in which case I must be boring and prefer my guides without extra character. We've not (knowingly) had so much water through the mushroom before, but it was an exceptionally heavy downpour. I can't think of an easy fix which won't actually divert more water through the vent. It's no good making an upstand around the base, for instance! Now if the mushroom extended down a bit more ...
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