Date - 14 July Day - Tuesday Start - 0945 End - Cropredy 1530 Tuesday I now know why the boat who moved to let us in last night went forward and not back, the boat behind him had a built in generator that was running until 9 30 last night and was on again this morning before 7 am this morning and it wasn't the best silenced ,quiet running unit available either. I shall make sure I avoid mooring near him again.
To say the South Oxford was busy today would be an understatement. The first past us just before 7 am and there were several more before we left at 9 45 am. We met 10 boats in the first hour, 5 of them were in the Fenny tunnels, these are not real tunnels anymore as the tops were removed may years ago leaving just the narrow, straight channel with a wider section between them, but they still represent bit of a hold up at busy times do to the need to hold back to let oncoming boats pass. The tenth boat we met was "NB.Tysley" which belongs to the Micron theatre who are performing at Fenny Compton tonight. They needed the deep water even more than I did so we had to pass quite close. We arrived at the top of Claydon locks with just one boat ahead of us and several coming up so we only needed to turn one lock, at the bottom of the flight there was a short queue forming of boats waiting to come up. We were surprised to get to the next lock and find we were in a queue of 5 boats as we had only seen the one boat in the distance until now. Just as we approached Cropredy it decided to rain,hail and anything else it could think of. By now some of the boats ahead of us had pulled over and moored up so we were able to go straight into the lock once the boat coming up had left, we dropped through the lock, still in poring rain and then pulled over to the service block on the right to dill with water. The weeping willow tree just before Cropredy Wharf Bridge is now in need of serious pruning as it covers the canal so well you can't see if anyone is approaching the bridge from the south. Once filled with water the sun came out once more and things warmed up considerably as we pushed off to find a nice quiet mooring south of the village, we passed all the new moorings on the off side and pulled in against the piling just before Slat Mill Bridge No.156 at 3 30 in the afternoon. Since we have been moored here there has been a steady flow of boats in both directions. You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route The 3 mobile signal is not bad with the dongle up the TV mast You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route -- Brian
