Day 1 - And we're off

Dawn over Blisworth Marina

6am the alarm on my ipod blurted the start of our return journey.  It’s a crispy cold September morning the moon out and the sun rising.

At 7.30 we started the engine and were off, only half an hour later than planned. The boys had around 3 hours before they would really be needed to operate the locks, so they lay in and enjoyed the views.  We joined the Grand Union Canal at Bridge 48 and headed off to a cold by cloudless sky with the sun shining on us, perfect.  ‘Angel‘ handles so nicely, smooth and quiet, not what we were used to from the hire boats we have had in the past. However it wasn’t long before I lost concentration and got attacked by several low flying trees, the new chimney hat only just managing to stay on. 

A nice feature of the waterways are the signposts and milestones.  I have formed a kind of love / hate relationship with them though.  “Braunston 15 miles”, but then don’t see another sign for ages and a few miles takes a long time to traverse!  Of course this is the real lure of the canal and it’s a case of re-adjusting timescales and getting in with the flow (and not comparing with an equivalent car journey).

It would be bridge 16 before we reached our first lock at Buckby bottom.  Now  these aren’t just any normal locks, they’re huge as this part of the Grand Union canal is wide and therefore two narrowboats can fit side by side in them.   The boys are working really hard, they are going to have muscles where they didn’t think they had them at this rate!  Alfie has assumed the position of ships mascot and proudly stands by my side sniffing into the air as we go along.  So far all is going to plan, even though we do appear to be losing a bit of time compared to the plan that we made,

7 locks later and we reach the infamous Braunston Tunnel, this took approx 30 minutes to transverse, 30 long, damp, dark minutes ..... I was relieved to see daylight, eventually!  


Sadly however, Braunston Tunnel claimed the life of one the navigation lights.  It sounded like we ripped apart the hull whilst we were in there, but luckily it was only the brass cased light that suffered.  


The escape vents didn’t put me at ease one little bit, no ladders!  “two narrow boats are able to pass”, cried a friendly boater, two boats, my ar**... well only just, with a piece of paper between us!.  

We then entered the 6 Braunston locks, two barges at a time.  I had a great conversation with the owner of a boat called ‘Vulcan’.  What was almost as interesting as the content of the conversation was the manner in which it was conducted. We would be talking then the gates opened, we stopped talking, and moved to the next lock, arranged the boats side by side, then carried on exactly where we left off, until the gates in front opened and our conversation paused again.  It was like “Satellite Delay” on a grand scale!!.  

A small while later, we came to a turning point labelled ‘Bridge 93’.  There were actually two bridges side by side one which was easy for us to turn in and one that was not.  Our directions had this down as Bridge 95 so by the time we worked out waht was going on, we overshot the easy turn and then caused a minor hold up to a pirate stag party as we swung her round,  winding up in the oxford section of the Grand Union.  

We stopped at our destination for the day, Bridge 102, at 5.45pm.  It’s a beautiful spot, the sun has shone all day, but it’s particularly lovely tonight, Shelley is peeling spuds looking out of the window thinking ‘it can’t really get any better than this’, of course there’s always tomorrow.  This morning I was a bit concerned that the canal plan we had made was over ambitious, as at one point we were lagging behind, but we have made our goal for today.  I don’t think the online canal route planner has taken into account slowing down for moored boats, so for next weekend we will put our speed in based on what we actually achieved.

We have had a great evening chilling by the pot belly stove, it’s so hot in here, we’re going out for air!  Alfie has thoroughly enjoyed today.  As I type he’s curled up by the back door (I think that’s the coolest spot tonight).  I even had to wake him for his dinner - so unheard of!

Shelley:

“We have another full day tomorrow, early night tonight, Dec is already snoring!!”

I don’t snore, and anyway, who’s fast asleep now? For me it has been a mixed day, mostly of enjoyment, but still can’t believe this boat is ours.  I did feel for one boater today as we came around a corner to find his barge diagonally across the canal while he struggled to pull it in with the middle rope and tie it to a tree.  Then I noticed it was a hire boat and felt very smug and righteous as I glided by in my non-hired boat.  Hmm, not such a clever thought and it wasn’t long before I got my comeuppance.  You see what I failed to mention earlier, apart from being attacked by trees, and knocking off a light in the Braunston tunnel, and missing a turning and making a right hash of correcting my position (even with bow thrusters) was that I grounded the boat after coming out of the tunnel, only slightly but enough to have to use the barge pole.  Of coarse, the icing on the cake was another boater gliding past me and saying “we’ve all done it”, and that’s the point really.  Even though we have made a few mistakes it’s nothing that others haven’t done before us (just a shame about the light).

I will now leave the nice warmth of the pot belly stove to go outside with the laptop, stand on one leg with might right hand holding the laptop in the air with the hope that I get a mobile signal and can send this tonight over the internet!

Today's Travel Map