A trip out

What a georgous day! We had promised to take some friends out for a trip up to L. (our nearest town),  have lunch at the canal side pub and come back, but one of them was ill today so they cried off. We had got the boat all ready for sailing so decided to go anyway.

We had a fantastic trip and I am getting so much better at negotiating bridges and tight turns. We are a good team P and I. We got the boat up to the basin and decided we may as well stay out tonight and as I have my flu jab tomorrow at our local surgery we thought we'd turn her round now so that we can make an early getaway in the morning.

We glided into a spare mooring and did a text book turn, me giving directions from the bow and holding the bow rope while P put her into forward and brought her beautifully and smoothly round.

We are starting to feel quite experienced now particularly as we encounted two problems on the way which would have completely phased us 'this time last year!' but we dealt with them really well. We were approaching bridge 92 which has a blind bend on the southbound approach, so as we were travelling north, we sounded the horn to let any oncoming traffic know we were coming through. We had just got to the bridge when a leisure cruiser appeared our of nowhere travelling far too fast and proceed to continue through the bridge at a right old lick! Luckily P. was at the tiller (I think I may have paniced!) and he slammed her into reverse just in time. They sailed past without so much as a 'by your leave' despite the fact that we had right of way. The lady sitting on the back gave us a haughty stare over her sun glasses as they flew past and then buried her nose in her 'hello' magazine. It's no wonder we narrow boaters name the plastic cruisers 'Yoghurt pots'! there's not a lot of love lost!

Of course this meant that we no longer had a decent line on the bridge, but P navigated us expertly through! A bit further up on an open stretch, along comes  another Yoghurt pot who was having great difficulty keeping it straight due to cross winds (you want to try controlling a 57ft narrow boat in a cross wind mate!!). So we decided to give it a wide berth and snuck in near the reeds.The canal is really full due to so much rain, but despite this we suddenly found we were stuck in the mud. Last year when a similar thing happened we had got so stressed and got the pole out and spent hours trying to pole ourselves off getting tired and muddy in the process. This time I calmly went down to the bow and plonked my not inconsiderable weight down on the port side and we waited until we elegantly slid off and were free in the swim again!

Having arrived at L. and finding a mooring 50 yards from the pub, we celebrated a successful trip with a pint and a pub lunch. It doesn't get much better!!!

A very happy boater!!