Date - 04 /07/08 Day - Friday and happy America Start - 0820 Arm End Gayton End - 48 hr mooring at Weston Favell
Harnser's present position http://tinyurl.com/3fwb6v We crossed the junction and topped the water tank up again as we had both had showers and feeling clean again, we then made our way down the Northampton Arm and stopped at Gayton Marine to buy a EA licence and a key to enable us to open the locks, together they only cost £171.02. By 9am we were on our way down the arm and heading for the first lock. The first 8 locks were against us and with the short pounds between locks even setting ahead resulted in water pouring over the lock gates, I think this is why after 9 they were full to 13, the water just topped the top gates and filled them. We had an uneventful run down meeting only one boat coming up. We moored for lunch just above the bottom lock a little after 1pm so not a bad run. This area is now surrounded by flats, there is no sign of any graffiti and looks to be a safe place to moor. There was one other boat there which was for sale and looked as if it was left with no problem. Out on the Nene and we moored in town to do a bit of shopping, I don't know what its like at night but again surrounded by flats, clean and CCTV. Once stocked up we were off and fumbled our way round the first lock when a second boat caught us up, we had chatted with them in Braunston and they were travelling with another boat so while he waited for his friend he gave us a hand down, they caught us up again at the next lock as we had to wait for a boat coming up and again helped us on our way. Just prior to Weston Favell lock there are some 48 hr moorings but we didn't realise this until we had gone through the flood protection barrier to the lock, our first with a guillotine lock and no external instructions, Diana eventually opened the stainless steal box, un-labled to find the buttons and some instruction to lower the guillotine. We then filled the lock and opened the gates, By now it was 4-15 and we decided we would rather stop on the visitor mooring so we waited untill the other two boats arrived and gave them the lock before I reversed back through the barrier and round to the moorings for the night. -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Join SOW and help save our waterways http://www.saveourwaterways.org
