Date - 30 12 06 Day - Saturday Start - 0845 am Stockton marina End - 3 pm Fosse lock
Yet again last night the wind picked up as the sun went down, but by this morning things were much calmer. However at about 8 it poured with rain for a short time before getting out into a reasonable morning. I looked out just after 8-30 to see "Mucky Duck" leaving the pontoon, I thought they were going to slip away ahead of us and then ask if we intended to stay in bed all day. The truth of the matter was they needed a pump out and fill up with water before they set off, but by then I had the engine running and was ready to go. As there were three boats I set off straight way down the flight which took Diana and I exactly an hour, we then stopped and walked back setting the locks for the other pair. We carried on with this routine until we stopped for lunch at Welsh Road Lock when I let the others lead and we followed, as they had a crew of 6 on the 2 boats Chard held back and helped us through. As we sat eating lunch I could see the atmospheric pressure falling back, it had been rising since early morning and by just after 2 pm the inevitable happened and it started chucking it down. We arrived at Fosse Lock just as Oak and Ash were coming in the bottom so we had to hang around while they breasted, came up and then singled out again on cross straps to travel to the next lock. I sat there all the time this happened with no problem and then just as Martin started to bring them out the wind started to take me over towards the centre of the cut. I must have sat there for a good 5 minutes without moving out, even when they filled the lock I still sat there, but as soon as someone was looking it all started going wrong. Just prior to the next lock we could see the other two moored up. We knew they had stopped for the night as John already had his TV aerial up. -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Visit this site and help save our waterways http://www.savethewaterways.org.uk/
