Monday 7th August 2006 Paddington to Limehouse 11 miles, 12 locks A friend was maybe going to join me today, however he decided not to, so we got off early to reach Limehouse before 17:00 to meet Sanity's guests for the next week. The weather had changed, and the rain that was promised to pass in the night was still with us in the morning. It didn't stop until we were well down the locks.
Bruce was not too happy about the attempted turn at Cumberland Basin. Sheila's excuse was that she was to busy looking at the floating Chinese restaurant boat, and didn't notice how sharp the turn is. She didn't hit the wall though! On the second Camden lock there was a bloke lying under the towpath side lock beam, oblivious to the rest of the world, and on the third lock a couple of drunks were taking an unhealthy interest in helping us through the lock. I don't know if it was here, or later at Old Ford Lock, that Bruce was approached for money. Daftly he gave them two pounds, under the disapproving eye of Sheila. All the locks were against us, and we finally caught up with another boat (whose name I've forgotten, but Bruce believed it was the bloke behind the radio callsign 'Ents1'). They were trapped behind a BW wide work boat single handing down the locks, and it didn't stop until Sturts Lock (IIRC). Afterwards we didn't see them again until we reached Limehouse. We turned into Ducketts Cut (the Hertford Union), and found the first two locks full with gates open. They must have left the top lock in a hurry as they managed to leave a ground paddle up as well! I had plenty of trouble from picking plastic up on the prop. I don't normally have too much of a problem normally, but on this trip I had real trouble knocking it back off, so I needed two weedhatch trips during the day. The Lea Old Ford Lock proved a little trouble when Bruce could not operate the mechanised lock. It turned out he had not waited long enough for the timed top paddles to rise, and the only paddle he could see from the panel had no indicator. I persuaded the Napiers to have a look at the back rivers, but the flowers that Sheila had been nurturing for months where quite high on the roof, and were difficult to move, so Bruce joined me on Shoestring, and Sheila took Sanity down the main river. I was a little worried that it might be a little weedy down the Back River, but apart from a good covering of duck weed, all was OK. Not much sign of building work, but there were two teams of surveyors measuring the river bed. The new City Mill Lock looks nearly ready to go, and it will be interesting to see this working. Sheila took it steady, and we met at the junction at about the same time, and we then followed her down to Limehouse. The moorings were a little full there, and so after finding out the marina moorings were £18 a night, we asked one of the boats to shuffle up a little so we could squeeze in. We moored, and went to talk to the lock keeper. He was letting a lock full up at the time, and at first warned us off the partially open top gates, though waved us through almost immediately. After looking at the river, we went back, and walked through the open gate to talk to the two lock keepers. Straight away the lock keeper asked us to "move behind the fence", as we should have a life jacket on. I mentioned about having no problems with being on the edge of Goole's Ocean lock without a life jacket, but we moved back. After looking the boats up he took us back to the control room, where I asked some questions about the pictures on the wall. There were some nice historic aerial photos of the area, which showed the old Limehouse cut lock, and the original Limehouse/Regents canal link - which was closed again after the Regents Canal was loosing some trade through it. The lock keeper plied us with documents, the most useful being the BW Guide to the Tidal Thames, which shows on a bridge by bridge basis where to go. By the time we had got back, Sanity's guests had arrived. After a little discussion it was decided to have dinner in the Cruising Association. A Beef Provence with Rice was the special, and everyone else had that. I fancied the ham, egg, and chips which I enjoyed. -- Michael Askin 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/
