Stray boats and fallen trees

There's never a dull moment on the cut, apart from the wind making steering difficult and uncomfortable, there are events that occur as a result. Leaving Bugbrooke this morning we intended to get to Buckby Wharf but, canals being canals, there are often many things that can hinder your progress. Two things today,  first we stopped to fill our tank with water at Stowe Hill. When finished we were just going to pull away when a boat appeared and going quite fast through the moored boats, then another two boats at a more sensible speed. Then we noticed a boat moored ahead of us had moved out across the canal, not quite able to fully turn in the width and became stuck in the shallow water on the off side. And there it stayed until enough blokes gathered to heave on the centre rope to haul it back to the canal side. The owner was asleep inside and was woken by someone on his boat finding a decent rope to heave on. We all eventually managed to get the boat to the side and the canal was open again. It all happened because someone was going too fast and pulled the mooring pins out of the ground, such disrespect.

Then we hadn't gone far when we were stopped by a boat moored under bridge 23. "Stop, there's a tree down" they hollered, but by that time we were too far ahead to stop and were through the bridge when another boater kindly said to moor alongside his. So that's what we did. And there we waited for British Waterways to turn up which they did after about an hour and a half. Just the one guy on his own who assessed the situation and made a phone call and then said their contractors will be along when they can.



Tree down just North of Bridge 23

We thought this could take hours and decided to take matters into our own hands, so we moved the purple boat and another moored in front up the cut about thirty metres and managed to squeeze a narrowboat throughthe gap. Then another and another until the queue had gone. Free at last. By now it was mid afternoon and the wind had taken its toll out of us so we found a nice spot just up a little ways and moored not too close to the M1. If we went much further we'd follow the M1 very closely for around two miles including the along the Buckby Flight, not so comfortable for a nights' peaceful mooring.

More tomorrow.