Thursday 29 April Napton

Yesterday evening two fishermen set up shop between the front of our boat and the entrance to the marina for an all night session after carp. We had bit of a chat, they had not heard anything of BW's plan to open miles of canal fishing and thought  good thing until I pointed out that some of those miles not let out to clubs was right where they had set up now and that they would be expected to pay for a permit, suddenly it wasn't quite such a good idea especially as in their opinion BW didn't do anything for fishermen. I called to see them last thing at night to see what they had caught, nothing. When I went to the loo at 5 am this morning there was no sign of them.

We set off a little before 9 this morning as we had an appointment with the BSS examiner at Calcutt at 9 30. or a little after, it was actually a little after when he arrived. It was the same chap who did it last time and we passed with no problem, in fact he felt a bit guilty that I was not getting my money's worth as its a fixed price inspection and we don't have gas, so only take half as long to do. Once done I filled with diesel at 76 p and we headed off up the locks.
It was bit of a squeeze getting away from the service point as another boat with kitchen roll paper in his macerator loo was along side us and two boats had just come out of the top lock waiting to enter the second, plus a boat coming up. One of the boats coming down backed up a bit and I got round and into the lock before the boat below had left the lock. There was a short delay before Diana could start filling the lock as the other boat wanted to deploy his fenders all round. I didn't mind as they were only pipe fenders and Calcutt locks are quite wide so very little chance of jamming up, in fact there was probably the best part of a foot of water between us.
Once clear of the locks we headed down to Wigrams Turn and turned sharp right onto the South Oxford. We had a brief stop at the old brick yards as I had seen some large bore plastic pipe in a yard there and the Dilham Canal Society want some to run a culvert under the canal, so I took a couple of photos and went to find out who owned it. We then carried on the The Folly moorings where we moored for lunch and because it was raining half the after noon. There was a steady flow of boats coming past and when we did set off all the Napton flight was with us, plus we met several boats coming down, so that compensated for the rain. We are now moored below the top lock for the night, we will move up to our moorings in the morning after we have put the dog in the car as its hard work getting the old boy across the gates now.