And finally "home" from "Ricky".

(With both boats - posted by Alan
(Retrospective Post for Saturday 2nd June)

A quick trip back to base, with me on "Flamingo" and Cath on "Sickle", (other than through Blisworth Tunnel, where David took charge of "Sickle" to allow Cath to be inside "Flamingo" with the dogs).

No pictures taken. it seems.

Stoke Bruerne to Weedon
Miles per boat: 9.8, Miles both boats: 19.6, Locks:0
Total Trip Miles: 257.0, Locks: 138

An easy day until the very last bit.

(With both boats - posted by Alan
(Very retrospective Post for Saturday 2nd June)

The rather lovely ex Stewarts and Lloyds "Gerald" passes before we set off.

Things have slipped again!  The push to get ready for the Braunston Historic Boats event, where we needed both boats present, each ready to accept guests, has meant that I failed to write up all of the previous trip.

Not a lot to say really - just a gentle plod back to base with both boats without rushing too much.

We like stopping in Stoke Bruerne, so decided to go no further than that on this day.

Not a good place for this to be if coming through that bridge with a full length boat!

Make up your mind! - Welcome or not?

About to enter Cosgrove lock.

Not recorded in the pictures is the major fight we had to get up the upper reaches of the Stoke Bruerne flight.  Levels in the "long pound" were so poor that I grounded totally with both boats abreast, then had a major fight to get David back on board, to free ourselves, and proceed with them singled out.  Even then Flamingo grounded totally when approaching the lock outside the Navigation, and it was necessary to send down several large flushes of water to get her off, which was only achieved with some difficulty.  It seems that low levels in all the major flights up here (Stoke Bruerne, Buckby and Braunston) are now accepted as the norm ny CRT.  At the worst bits, it can make working boats of the draught of "Sickle" ot "Flamingo" an order of magnitude harder than it ought to be.  A very disappointing situation, but increasingly the norm.

Great Linford to Stoke Bruerne
Miles per boat: 11.4, Miles both boats: 22.9, Locks: 8
Total Trip Miles: 237.4, Locks: 138

Some rather good photos.

(With both boats - posted by Alan
(Retrospective Post for Monday 14th May)

When we were boating down the Stoke Bruerne flight a few weeks ago, I was aware we were being regularly photographed. 

So I had a word with the photographer, to see if he publishes his pictures on the Internet.  He is called Geoff Murphy, he does publish his photos, and they are really rather good.

Once I had seen them, I asked Geoff if I could put some on the blog, but initially missed his reply dues to the intricacies of Flickr.  However I can now see he said this was OK, so I'm posting a selection here.

As I need them in quite low resolution on the blog, if you are interested in seeing Geoff's whole album at a higher quality, you can view it here.

As usual clicking an image in the blog should show it larger.

(All photos copyright Geoff Murphy, but used with permission)

Milton Keynes

(With both boats - posted by Alan

Latest boat found drifting in the middle of the canal

Some canal boaters like long lock-free pounds, where you can travel maybe 10, 20 or even more miles without working through any locks. Other canal boaters like working through locks, and prefer stretches of canal where they come fairly regularly.  Generally I fall into the second of these groupings - I like taking the boats through locks - though I will admit that with the passing of years, and me not getting any younger, trying to knock off thirty or more fairly heavy locks in a days boating no longer holds the appeal it did when I was in my teens or twenties!

One of CRT's this time - at least there was some (just) usable rope!

Even now I like to take things a bit easier, though, I am not a huge fan of travelling relatively local stretches of canal that I know well, but which have no locks and which I need to cover on a regular basis to access destinations further afield.  The stretch of the Grand Union that takes a fairly circuitous route around Milton Keynes is such a stretch.  (OK, strictly the canal didn't exactly choose to be routed around Milton Keynes because it was there getting on for 200 years before most of Milton Keynes was - it just happens that Milton Keynes has been built so it now looks like the GU passes around much of it!)

Quiet passage through "Three Locks"

There is nothing really wrong with this stretch of canal as a cruising route, in fact much of it is quite pleasant, and some of what it passes through is very nice indeed.  But once you have left Leighton Buzzard and the locks at Stoke Hammond behind, it is all one lock-less stretch, other than the very shallow lock at Fenny Stratford.  Even as you pass out of Milton Keynes through Wolverton, there is still only one fairly shallow lock as Cosgrove, before several more miles to Stoke Bruerne, the first point at which you get to start working again.

We find that for overnight stops in Milton Keynes it is well worth getting to know the "best" bits near some of the old villages it swept in as it grew.  Favourite overnight moorings with us include Stantonbury - still very rural, with a walk out to a derelict church, although new housing is now changing this area.

However even better is Great Linford, particularly if you can get on one of the very few "Parks" 48 hour moorings on the non tow-path side.  This time we couldn't, and consequently struggled to find anywhere deep enough on the tow-path side to tie up our deep draughted ex working boats. without having to get the dogs to walk a plank to get on and off.  However once we were finally moored, we were still able to walk a circuit across two different bridges, so the dogs got to enjoy the rather nice park anyway, (even if Odin was a bit miffed at not being allowed to swim in a pond that looked like more mud than water!)

Leighton Buzzard to Great Linford
Miles per boat: 14.3, Miles both boats: 28.6, Locks: 6
Total Trip Miles: 214.5, Locks: 130

Need to get to the pub!

(With both boats - posted by Alan)

Heading away from our overnight mooring at Cowroast.

With all the disruption and delay to our return journey from Rickmansworth, (the result of Michael's latest operation), I had completely overlooked the fact that I had arranged to go on my regular monthly pub night with former work colleagues,

setting off dowm the Marsworth flight, breasted up.

When the emails started arriving to confirm the meet up was on, I realised I had a problem........

Unless.......  If we could arrange to meet somewhere I could get to from the boat, I could still attend.  We regularly meet up in Leighton Buzzard, and that looked a possible target for me, so that's what we agreed to do.

the large sweeping curves at Marsworth are great fun.

In theory getting to Leighton by boat and in good time should have been easy, but in reality it was again harder work that I had hoped.  I'm now coming to the realisation that it is mostly the locks that take longer with two boats, significantly more so than the travel between them.  At each lock we have to open and close every single gate at least once, and this involves quite a bit of walking right around both sides of the lock, and across a set of gates.  With only one boat you can usually avoid much of this.

Carrying on down Marsworth

Also factor in that where we pass through lock flights, or even just locks in closely spaced pairs, we generally breast the boats together - that is tie one alongside the other, and use only one for power, ragging the other one along as if unpowered.  This should be quite efficient - it frees up a second person to do the lock work, as only one steerer is required, but if you encounter gates that will not push far enough back into their recesses to allow both boats out together, you can get both boats jammed tightly between two gates, and it can take considerable time to extricate yourself from it.  Generally it means singling the boats out again, meaning an unplanned change in how we are working, as a second steerer is now needed, leaving only one person to to all the lock work.

Seabrook locks

So Leighton Buzzard was reached a fair bit later than plan, but I still got to enjoy my evening out.

Reading back through this, I see I have failed to mention the totally unexpected deluge that started to fall on us shortly after we left Grove lock.  I don't think I have ever got as wet and cold quite as quickly ever before when boating.  For the remainder of the trip the boat was festooned with wet clothes, shoes and boots, non of which had dried out several days later!

Seabrook locks are also done breasted together.

Last of the Seabrook locks.

David with Sickle between Church and Grove locks.

Cowroast to Leighton Buzzard
Miles per boat: 12.0, Miles both boats: 23.9, Locks: 18
Total Trip Miles: 185.9, Locks: 124

Moving again - Another short hop

(With both boats - posted by Alan

A slightly obstructed approach into our first lock of the onward journey.

Having the boats in Berkhamsted at least gave us the opportunity to spend time on them in easy reach of our home.  Thus we could both support Michael as required, but also do a few tasks on the boats, as well as simply keeping an eye on them.  Some nights we managed to be aboard, others we were at home.

One disadvantage of the part of Berkhamsted we initially moored in is the masses of bird poo that descend on the boat from the trees that overhang the moorings.  This seems to be from birds that turn out a particularly unpleasant variety, and which quickly becomes remarkably difficult to remove from paintwork.  No sooner do you get most of one lot off than another arrives.  Eventually after a few days an adequate space opened up a short way further forwards, and we were able to shuffle the boats far enough to make the problem far less bad.

Second lock - the "Upper Gas" lock.

I'll not go into too much detail about attempts to clear part of the main cabin roof where paint has been peeling off, and to get it into primer.  Suffice it to say that on a day where rain was only forecast as a vague possibility, shortly after I had finished painting the heavens opened on to paint that was still completely wet.  Minutes later torrents were running ovr it, and the wet paint was under at least a centime of running water.

After about five days in Berkhamsted we judged that Michael could survive without us for a few days, and because of other planned commitments we really did need to get the boats back to their home moorings.  So we loaded up again with all that we needed to move two boats together, (and that included David!), and set off on the first available evening for another short hop up to Cow Roast.

Berkhamsted to Cowroast
Miles per boat: 2.9, Miles both boats: 5.9, Locks:7
Total Trip Miles: 162.0, Locks: 106

Another small hop

(With both boats - posted by Alan)

Sickle passes her twin Tycho, which is currently based in Berkhamsted.

These will be only brief postings with a few photos, as we are now some time after when the boat moves were actually able to take place.

Following working around our son Michael's ankle operation the boats were left at Winkwell for a bit under a couple of days, but as soon as we reasoned we could get away from home for a few hours, it clearly made more sense to move them up to Berkhamsted.

This is one of those stretches of canal where the locks come thick and fast, so although we only travelled less than 3 miles, the brief trip still involved 8 locks.

Fortunately the water situation South of Berkhamsted is massively better than when we attempted the same journey a year previously.  Back then several of the pounds were down by twenty inches or more, making moving deep draughted boats a major struggle.  This year levels were normal, and we were pleased not to bounce over anything!

Winkwell to Berkhamsted
Miles per boat: 2.7, Miles both boats: 5.4, Locks: 8
Total Trip Miles: 156.1, Locks: 99