The last long cruise of the year! Part 1

Friday 11th September 2009

Arrived at Marina at 6.00pm and unpacked the car in time to appreciate a wonderful sunset and more importantly, in time to align the satellite dish in order to receive Emmerdale! During the adverts I fitted the first two premeasured pieces of sound insulation around the vacuflush pump unit. A first phase of a grand scheme that will eventually (& hopefully) result in a quieter flush! This went too well; and it would only be a matter of minutes before a problem manifested itself. Like clockwork; within five minutes it became apparent, after Elaine emptied and refilled the sink, that the overflow connection on the galley sink had in fact become disconnected from the overflow on the sink itself. The cupboard below the sink was flooded resulting in all the contents at both floor and shelf level being soaked. Although this problem was clearly a result of forcing too much gear onto the shelf below the sink (i.e. Elaine's fault) it wasn't long before I had to take full responsibility by acknowledging I may have too much Boddingtons and Budweiser stored on the boat leaving inadequate space for sensible stuff. Thankfully the problem was easily and soon rectified without throwing any drinks overboard.

Saturday 12th September 2009

Up early; and after breakfast were ready to set off (circa 8.30am) on our cruise down to the Ashby Canal. As is normally the case, when you haven't been to the boat for a couple of weeks, there were many stow-aways on board of the eight legged variety. The photo below shows one such spider that had created a web between our boat and that of our neighbouring boat, nb. Kaspra.

A spider - unsure of which boat to stowaway on.

By lunchtime we had reached 'The Plum Pudding' just before Armitage and moored to watch the Italian F1 Grand Prix Qualifiers. Judging by the speed of passing boats it was clear that there wasn't only Lewis Hamilton with 'KERS'. After 'Quali 3' we set-away again heading for Fradley Junction. On the way we passed narrowboat 'Danby Dale' that although this boat didn't mean anything to me I was soon advise by my eagle eyed galley girl that this boat was in fact bearing British Waterways Registered Number 516807. This was chronologically the number immediately prior to ours! (516808). Quite a coincidence and a coincidence that was sadly missed by the crew of 'Danby Dale' that by now were diminishing into the distance behind us.

Lunchtime mooring just beyond the Plum Pudding

At Fradley Junction we turned south onto the Coventry Canal and were lucky to find a perfect mooring just beyond the water point. After dinner on board we walked down to the Swan for a drink.

Sunday 13th September 2009

Today, as yesterday, the weather was fantastic for this time of the year. (Most unusual for our cruising experience!). The new pram hood is clearly keeping the rain clouds away. Moored for lunch at 12.30pm near Whittington and watched the Grand Prix before continuing down to Fazeley Junction where we were again lucky in finding a perfect mooring opposite Peels Wharf at around 5.00pm. A short walk to Tesco Express to top up the stocks of Bread and Milk rounded off a very enjoyable day.