Saturday 28 March 2015 Willey Moor Lock

We woke to a fine morning but it was raining before we were up. Once the rain stopped we took a walk into Whitchurch, its a fair step from the end of the arm so I can’t see how their proposed new basin will bring much trade to the town. We arrived back at the boat at lunchtime and after a bite to eat set off at 1330 hrs. By now the wind had picked up to a good breeze. On leaving the Whitchurch are I had to continue back towards Llangollen and then wind before I could continue down to Grindley Brook. This is due to the arm joining the canal on a sharp bend so it is to tight to turn right as you leave. I dropped Diana at the junction and she had the lift bridge open for me when I got back. I winded in a slightly unconventional way by turning toward the tow path and putting my stern into the winding hole, the reason for this was the stiff breeze coming down the canal through the road bridge, this assisted the bows round.

When we arrived at Grindley Brook locks there was a lock keeper on duty bringing a single boat up, so I assisted by draining the bottom chamber after they had gone up to the middle. On a staircase lock like this if you are coming down the chambers have to be near their normal low level to leave room for the water coming down from the chamber above. If you don’t do that you flood the tow path. There is a video of boats using the staircase at https://vimeo.com/12924835. The strange thing was that the first two locks after the staircase were empty but the bottom one was full. We carried on for another hour to moor just below Willey Moor Lock and in the hour we have been here we have seen more boats on the move than in the rest of the day.

Today’s Journey 3¼ miles 8 Locks 1 Junction twice, 1 arm in 2½ hours.