NAVIGATIONS END

FRIDAY 26^TH TO TUESDAY 31^ST JULY 2012                    

Firstly, many thanks for all the concern shown for Duggie, but I am pleased to say that he is absolutely back to his usual self, the wound has healed well and apart from his shaved paw you wouldn’t know he had been in the wars.

We watched the Olympic ceremony on Friday night with our chums at Eaton Socon, we loved the maypole and cricket on the village green bit, and the industrial revolution, but got confused with the rest of it, but then, I am definitely turning into an old curmudgeon. We had to keep the taxi waiting for half an hour whilst waiting for the lighting of the cauldron, but that was worth it!

We left our mooring reasonably early on Saturday morning, hoping to avoid the rush for the locks, but actually there was hardly a boat on the move, Jacquie said that all normal people would be watching the Olympics on TV; anyway we soon arrived at Great Barford Lock and moored on a lovely bit of open green on the opposite side to The Anchor pub and just before the 15^th century stone bridge, well, the down side is stone, but the upside is brick faced, this being added when the bridge was widened in the 19^th century.

Other friends, Angela and David, who live in Bedford, joined us late in the afternoon for a meal. They have a river cruiser moored in Bedford and we hope to have a trip out on their boat, during the next few days. On Sunday morning we walked up to the village and passed a white farm house, the front of which, had had an amazing Georgian makeover, giving it the appearance of a grand three story house, obviously the long gone farmer must have had pretensions of grandeur. 

We passed under the indicated arch of the old bridge on Sunday morning without any difficulty and headed upstream on the ever narrowing river. Three locks to navigate; the first two of which were with mitre gates at each end and were set right alongside the weir; these were quick to operate; the last one some way down a cutting, had a guillotine gate at one end and was full of kids splashing about. This lock took a bit longer to traverse, but we were soon back onto the river and within a few minutes we hooted at and waved to David as we passed him whilst he was polishing his boat. We turned into the very poorly indicated BWML Priory Marina and temporarily moored at the fuel pontoon, after finding the tucked away BWML office and checking in we eventually tied up at our allocated pontoon, plugged into the shoreline, filled with water and adjusted the satellite dish.

The end of navigation is just a mile or so upriver, so this is as far as we can go on this trip; it is all downstream from this point on, but this is a good base to stay whilst exploring Bedford. The riverside up near the town centre is lovely, reminiscent of Maidenhead on the Thames and the new silver pyramid construction houses a swimming pool and right next to the marina is the Priory Country Park with lots of great doggy walks. 

David collected us by car on Monday evening and we had dinner with them and today, Tuesday, Jacquie is having a girly outing with Angela, whilst I catch up with the blog and hopefully tomorrow we will experience the river from a proper boat.

SKYY TO THE RESCUE

MONDAY 23^RD TO THURSDAY 26^TH JULY 2012                    

                                                                                            

The water had dropped below the river bank and the flow had substantially slowed as we left Holywell behind us on Monday morning. The sun still shone and within a couple of miles we were through St Ives Lock and approaching the multi arched Town Bridge with the remains of its chapel in the middle, the river side buildings are really attractive, but we carried onto the EA moorings and water point off to the right of Holt Island. There was just one mooring spot left and we slipped into it and awaited for Angonoka to come alongside, but by the time they arrived, having visited Jones’s boatyard for services, the boat behind us had left, leaving enough room for them and our hoses were just long enough to reach the tap.

St Ives is very pretty and the town square is dominated by the austere figure of Oliver Cromwell. We enjoyed an afternoon drink on The Dolphin Hotels riverside terrace followed by ice cream before wandering back to a deserted SKYY, most of the other boats having left, including Angonoka. Judy and Don had backed out of this narrow back water to the GOBA field mooring half a mile upstream, but we enjoyed a peaceful night

We joined them on Tuesday morning and proceeded up this very beautiful stretch of river, passing though Hemingford and Houghton Locks which once had mills beside them and stopped for lunch at the garden side mooring in Huntingdon. We decided we would explore this town on our way back in a couple of weeks and so pushed on through Godmanchester Lock and Brampton Lock which still does have a beautiful mill with a working water wheel, it is a pub and resturant now, but sadly there was no room for us at the mill, so we carried on a little further to the GOBA mooring and squeezed in alongside one another. This was to be the last day that we cruised with Judy and Don as they were turning around in the morning to head back, as they have much further to go to get to their home mooring at Newbury. We had a lovely last supper with them and on Wednesday morning we bade them farewell, with the two dogs looking very sad to be parted, as we all were.

We turned SKYY into Buckden Marina as it is part of the same group as Wigrams Turn and admired the surroundings and the log cabins; maybe this will be where we will settle after finishing our liveaboard life, who knows? Filled with diesel and water we carried on passing by St Neots and a very green boat before arriving at Eaton Socon Lock. Kids were jumping in and swimming all over the place as we tried to moor up, one young lad grabbed hold of the boat and I told him to get off as I was concerned that he would get squashed between SKYY and the bank, in fact he was totally exhausted and was about to go down, so he clung on as we carefully eased up to the bank, fending off with the poles so his mates could drag him out. Seems lucky we turned up when we did or it might have been the Fire and Ambulance services that were needed.

After some difficulty I managed to moor stern on to one of the two short finger moorings provide by the lock side Mill Tavern and Jac’s friend Chris and her husband, Mike joined us for a drink at the pub and then dinner on Skyy. They only live a short way off  so we will stay for a couple of days allowing us to watch the Olympic opening ceremony on Chris and Mike’s big TV on Friday before moving on to Bedford.

A LAZY DAY

THURSDAY 19^TH TO SUNDAY 22^ND JULY 2012                            

Dinner on Wednesday evening, with Judy and Don was, as expected, good fun despite the storm clouds that gathered but the rain didn’t come too much and by Thursday morning the water level had continued to drop. I phoned the number provided by the traffic warden who was collecting the registration numbers of boats who had overstayed the 48 hours and explained our need to stay until after Dug had been back to the vets, the chap on the other end of the phone couldn’t have been more concerned and helpful and it was OK to stay until Saturday. If I hadn’t have called we would have been given a letter telling us to move on, just the first stage I imagine, but it is good to see a proactive approach to ensuring that boaters obey the rules.

Duggie pulled all the way to the vets on Friday morning, despite his plastic boot scrapping on the ground. The wound was healing well, a fresh dressing was applied and we were told to keep this on for a few more days and to still use the boot to keep it clean and dry, but we were free to move on. During the rest of Friday we explored more of Ely, including the nearby Tesco and became even more enchanted with this diminutive city and its friendly inhabitants.

The promised sunshine finally arrived on Saturday, Angonoka headed off upriver, but before we could follow them we turned and headed back to the services and am glad to report that the pumpout was working here. Everything was done in a rush as there was a couple of other boats hovering about waiting to use the facilities, but even the battered flowers tubs got a quick watering.

We caught up with Judy and Don at a GOBA mooring just before Popes Corner and had coffee before moving on. As we moved upstream after the Cam had joined the Ouse the river became much narrower and more canal like and after about twelve miles of sunny cruising, Hermitage Lock hove into view. Previously, the skipper of a boat coming the other way had advised us to take the flowers of the roof before entering the lock and the lock keeper confirmed this, he was also concerned that our roof box might not clear the road bridge which passes directly over the lock. It was decided to let Angonoka go first and she had about a foot between her roof and the bridge we thought we would be OK. As the photo shows we had about four inches clearance, the air draft guide showed 1.9 meters, we would probably scrapped through with 1.8, I must remember those numbers in a similar situation.

The other side of the lock the river is tidal for a couple of miles up to the next lock. The dead straight drains of the Old and New Bedford Rivers are immediately to the right and discharge flood water directly to the sea near Kings Lynn, but even so we were amazed to see how much land was still under water here. Our intended mooring at the abandoned Crown Inn was impossible as the pubs gardens was completely submerged, so we motored on through Brownhill Staunch and kept going to the picturesque, village of Holywell, where the public moorings were only six inches underwater.

The guide book says that the Old Ferry Boat Inn is the oldest in the country; the pub is a little more modest and claims to be’ one’ of the oldest pubs, but either way the pub and the thatched cottages provided a very pleasant back drop, so we decided to stay here for the whole weekend. Colin an old chum of mine, who happened to be in the area managed to join us for Saturday evening, whence I deployed the BBQ for the first time this summer and roasted a pork joint in it, delicious. Colin left soon after Sunday breakfast and we settled down in our deck chairs to watch the boats go by, a good decision as judging by the amount of river traffic, finding another decent mooring at St Ives would have been difficult.

PAW PAW

TUESDAY 17^TH TO WEDNESDAY 18^TH JULY 2012                           

Duggie was carried most of the way to the vets for his nine o’clock appointment and he bravely limped off with the nurse. We moped about for most of the morning, but at two o’clock we couldn’t look at his empty bed anymore and had to phone the vets for a progress report, we were told that all was well, but he was having another X-ray. Just after four the phone rang and we were told that we could collect him at quarter to five. The vet showed us the X-rays and little slither of glass that had been removed from his pad and then the little chap came hopping towards us with his front left leg all wrapped up in blue sticky tape.

His follow up medication was explained, a plastic bag, made from an old saline drip bag, was tied over his taped up foot, a follow up appointment was made for Friday and the bill settled, fortunately pet insurance will pick up the majority. After a little hopping along so that he could have a pee, I carried him back to SKYY where he settled down to sleep off the anaesthetic and we relaxed happy to see his bed re-occupied. 

We all slept in late on Wednesday, but Duggie was keen to get out once I had tied on his plastic boot and was running around so fast I had to put him back on the lead, but he looked back to his old self. Rain arrived again mid morning and it was a day for doing not a lot except a bit of people watching from the cosiness of SKYY as they soddenly walked the river side.

In the evening Judy, Don and their dog Chressie are coming on board for dinner and it promises to be a fun evening.