Day 25 - Tuesday 18th July 2006 After the first couple of boats had passed I got fed up of the banging, so got up and retied the boat. The mooring pin had pulled free, but seemed to be wedged against the back edge of the concrete piling. Later another boat passed at speed, but then it went quiet, and I was just getting off to sleep when I heard a knock on the roof.
The pin had given up, and the stern had drifted across the canal. A hire boat had pulled up to the bank, and one of their crew helped me retie the boat. From using the engine to get the rear of the boat back to dry land again, I had pulled the front mooring pin out a bit, and another passing boat pulled it loose. I gave up at this point, and got up, and properly tied the boat. We had a lazy morning, Dad didn't get up until 11:00 - there was no rush, as I wanted to see the demolition of the Drakelow towers near Burton. We finally left the cool shady moorings at 14:10, Dad offered to steer, as he likes the sun. The top set of locks at Fradley were deadly quiet, however it all kicked off on the bottom three, when a boat came out of the Coventry arm, and two boats coming were messing about something chronic. The woman who owned this 20ft fibreglass boat was doing her first few locks, and had not got enough confidence to do them on her own, so her sister (I presume) was helping her to get into the lock (left a little, right a bit). Her son-in-law on the narrowboat moored on the lock moorings below, didn't seem to want to come into the lock when it was ready, choosing to wait while the other boat caught up - so we were waiting ages. Then to cap it all off, once up, tied up, even though the next lock was ready and waiting for them! Oh, we do get them down (and up) the Fradley flight. We follow the other boats in front, and finally gave up, near Will Chapman's moorings at Alrewas - no boat though, as he will be well on the way to London. --- Mike Askin nb. Kismet http://shoestring.zapto.org/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
