March is living up to it’s reputation…

I don’t think we’ve had such an extended period of very windy weather like we’re having now. As I write this we’re bouncing about a bit, even though we’re fairly sheltered up on the lower end of the Erewash Canal.

Windy river

We were joined over the weekend by barge Anja, a rather large 73 x 12½ foot Dutch luxemotor, built in 1929 and converted to a live-aboard at Brentford in the nineties.
A bit big for us, but very nice nonetheless.

We came up off the river on Tuesday afternoon, with more rain forecast the Trent was only going to higher and faster, and we were getting short of water anyway. It turned out to be a good move, it’s up another 5 or 6 inches this morning. We scraped under the lock tail bridge on Tuesday, today I don’t think we’d have fit.

I was a bit worried about the move, but it was easier than I expected. Once untied we drifted backwards on the brisk current, with just minor gentle bursts on the throttle to keep us from swinging across the flow. Then, as we got alongside the entrance to the canal I angled in and snuck under the bridge. I suppose getting into Keadby and West Stockwith Locks off the tidal Trent is good practice!

The level is up about 3 feet from when we arrived a week ago, but at least it’s not rising as fast as it did when we were here in November 2016. Now that was a little hairy!

Loki is still moored on the pontoons, I don’t think they’ll be moving for a few days now.

Nor will we in fact. We’ll toddle up to the first winding hole to turn around when we have a calm spell, then come back here to above the lock to wait until the river goes down a bit before heading to Sawley Cut.

Locks 1, miles about ⅛