Date - 13 /08/08 Day - Wednesday Start - 0730 End - 1600 Harnser's present position http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route
We attended the briefing last night where we were told which group would be leaving when and who would be leading. We are in group 2 and we were due to leave at 8am. The alarm was set, dog walked and at 730am just as it started to rain we winded and made our way to the entrance to the Oozells Street Loop for about ten to eight and every one had gone. We didn't do the Oozells loop as we did that yesterday and went straight to the Icknield Port loop and the the Soho Loop past Winson Green Prison as we exited the Soho loop we could see two of the others ahead. There was a choice of route to get to the Wolverhampton level and we decided to turn sharp right on ourselves and go up the Spon Lane locks, there was a boat waiting to go up ahead of us and as they opened the bottom gates we could see large amounts of water coming in under the top gate, just as they got in BW arrived to scrape the cill, they didn't bother to draw the paddles to fill the lock the leaking top gates let it in fast enough. BW couldn't find any obstruction and needed to investigate further so we turned round and continued on the Birmingham Level to Factory Locks at Tipton where we caught up with the two boats we had seen earlier, they said that the others had left quite early as they had not heard them go passed. BW assisted us up the Factory Locks as they just happened to be there to adjust water levels. Once clear of the locks it was through Coseley Tunnel and then right down the Bradley Arm, we only got as fare as the first bend when everything stopped with blanket weed, poly and fishing line round the prop stopped us, I almost had it clear when the boat that had gone vis Spon Lane arrived and gave it a try, he got just as far as us before we hauled him back to the bridge so he could clear his prop as well. We had just backed out onto the main line when a boat came sailing out of the arm, he had been right to the end and had no problem at all. We carried on in the continuing rain to the basin at the top of the Wolverhampton flight where the rest were already winded ready for the morning and moored up for the night. We have another briefing at 6 tonight to fill us in on tomorrows activities. -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Join SOW and help save our waterways http://www.saveourwaterways.org
