Day - Tuesday
Start - Brookwood ,Basingstoke Canal
End - Laleham, River Thames
Yesterday afternoon we went a little further up the Basingstoke to turn
ready to leave this morning. We had seen the duty Ranger and he had told
us that he intended to unlock at 7-30 so we could get away a couple of
hours earlier if we wanted to, but we had no intention of going much
before 9.
After we had turned we came back down and moored again on the outside of
Fair-fa but now we were bow to stern so we had to be well forward so
that Magic could get off our front deck across their stern. This meant
that the stern line was about 5 foot long and at the bows we took a turn
around the T stud of the boat in front to hold us forward and then back
to Fair-fa to hold us in nice and snug.
We heard the first boats go by about 20 to 7 this morning but stayed
snuggled up in bed, then as another boat went by, Bang, we hit the boat
behind. I got up to see what had happened. The boat in front had left
early and just slipped or line, they didn't pull us in tight or anything
else so when the boats started passing us we were on the end of 5 foot
slack mooring lines and going everywhere. When we moored up last night
they never mentioned they wanted to get away early when I said about
putting a line on their stud. Anyway the end result was we got up and
set off, no shower, wash or anything. We caught up with the other boats
at about 7-30 at the first lock, the first bunch had just set off. We
paired up with another boat that moored on the Wey and followed down in
turn all the way to the Wey where our partners stopped to unload there
boat and go home. We arrived at the first lock on the Wey alone and set
the lock in our favour, looking downstream the Tug that had been towing
a crane barge in front or us was now across the river, the crane had
lifted the stern of the tug and they were removing all the debris
collected on the Basingstoke.By the time we had locked down they were
finished and getting ready to continue their tow. At the next lock we
spotted two gentlemen setting it and there on the lock moorings was a
very smart wooden rowing boat all varnished and shiny it even had carpet
on the boards.They invited us to enter the lock first and ten followed
us in, we worked the rest of the Wey locks together and then said
farewell as they were only going to Weybridge. As we entered the Thames
the flow of water from the weir at Shepperton lock was much less than
when went up, we turned left and waited to enter Shepperton lock and
then up to Chertsey Lock to fill with water, unfortunately the two
narrowboats ahead of us had the same idea, but the wait gave me the
opportunity to remove the weed and Polly bags from the prop.After filling
the water tank we continued upstream,under the M3 to moor on the 24 hour
moorings at Laleham, there was just one space left when we arrived at
about quarter to seven and we have already noticed there are a lot more
boats about on the Thames than there were a week or so ago.
--
Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Visit my Web site at http://www.harnser.info
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