BOTTOM BLACKING

Apologies for the delay in posting the previous blog, but when I finally had time to write it we were tucked up in the dry dock in Braunston. The canal at Braunston is set deep in a valley and is notorious for its lack of mobile phone signal, so within the cover of the dry dock we had no chance in getting a mobile broadband connection.

We entered the dock on Thursday morning at 9am. We had to reverse into the bottom lock, so that when we excited at the top we would be able motor forward into the dry dock. Previously my attempts at reversing any distance had been a very erratic affair, but having been given some good advice, we managed it without mishaps.

Once we were in the dock the gate was pushed sideways over the entrance and then lowered and chocked into position, a sluice at the top end was opened and very quickly the water ran out and the Skyy was centred and settled down onto large baulks of wood. Tim almost immediately got down into the dock and started to pressure jetthe hull. The algae and paint was blasted off leaving a remarkable clean hull which was the left to dry overnight.

In the meantime we wandered up to the chandlers, and spent the usual fortune, but with very pleasant encounters with other boaters. Jim and Jane from Apple Queen took pity on us on our way back to our cold dark boat (we couldn’t run our engine to recharge the batteries as we had no water around the hull to cool it, so we had to minimise our use of electricity as we would be here for three nights) and invited us in for tea and biscuits. We said that we would go to the quiz night at the Mill House and they thought that they may also go. What a quiz team we turned out to be, we won the pot of £17. Obviously the secret is it to make sure you pick intelligent looking people as quiz partners and in this situation Jim and Jane were not only lovely company but clever with it.

The next day we got the bus to Daventry, principle to visit the doctors to try and get rid of my persistent cough, that achieved, well visiting the doctor bit, we will have to wait a little longer to see if the cough clears up. Daventry turned out to be a lovely old market town, complete with open market, Tim, our bottom blacker, said that there are plans to build for another 20,000 residents, what a shame.

This was the first time that we used our over 60’s national free bus passes. Great!! the buses were bang on time and picked us up and dropped us right outside the entrance to Braunston Marina. What timing, these passes became valid for the first time ever on April Fools day, the official start day of our adventure.

Again I will add pictures as soon as possible.