Getting oiled and being a stick-in-the-mud...

Well, it’s been a mixed weekend for weather. Saturday was beautiful, so I spent the afternoon in the engine room, changing the oil and filters on the engine and gearbox. Yesterday was rainy all day, so Meg and I went for a long walk around the local hills!

Nice shiny engine.
I didn’t get any photos of yesterday’s walk, so I repeated it this morning, with it being fine and dry, although hazy.

Around the hills to the East of the canal.
After lunch we moved on up the last 5 locks to just below the East Summit Lock, Longlees.
As we approached the top of the flight, the pounds in between the locks got shallower and shallower, culminating in the final pound being little more than muddy ditch. By the time we’d come up through the lock, dumping another lock full of water downhill, a boat that had gone up earlier today was well stranded on the mud. Two others on the offside, permanent moorers, were also dry-bottomed.

Thetis, on the mud.

Not exactly parallel parking!
We couldn’t get in to the bank, but Carol found a deeper spot near the lock, so we finished slantwise across the canal. The chap on Thetis called BW, and a chap came and dropped some water down from the summit for us, so we’re all floating again.
I’m not sure what state we’ll be in in the morning though. There’s a leak into a culvert near the lock, so the pound will be down again by then.

Mags got this superb shot of Carol’s dog, Seally, pretending to be a figurehead on Corbiere’s cratch.
We’re scheduled to go up through the last lock tomorrow at 08:30, (assuming we’re afloat…), and from then on it’s downhill all the way to Manchester. Since we left the Trent at Keadby Lock, we’ve climbed up in every lock, apart from Sykehouse on the New Junction. When we clear Longlees tomorrow morning, we’ll be 600’ above sea level.


Locks 5, miles 1