Long Itchington

Date - 28 April 2011
Day - Thursday
Start - Calcutt top
End -Long Itchington

About 1030 this morning we decided to move over to the water point and
top up before continuing on our way. Just before we did a boat cam
passed and tied up on the lock moorings, then nothing.

As we moved to the water point 2 boats came up in the lock, the lady on
the Canalbreak asked if we were going down and should she leave the
gates, I explained we were about to take water and would be a good 10
minutes before e we were ready to set off but the chap on the lock
moorings probably would. As they left the lock the other boat went in
and asked if we were joining him. I repeated the story and he said"fine, I
want a couple of things from the shop I will leave her here until you
are ready"
Once filled with water we went into the lock beside his boat, closed up
and a couple of minutes he returned.

We thought he was single handing, but actually he had a young lady with
him who was not an experienced boat, but her inexperience made no
difference to his efficiency. He was well set up with ropes with eyes
for the bollards and quite happy to both use one gate, at the first lock
he shot down and set the second ready.

As we cleared Calcutt he asked how far we were going as he was heading
to Bascote for the night. We were more than happy sharing with him so we
decided to do the Stockton flight together as well.

As we approached Stockton top, two hire boats just came out of the lock,
so we had a very good run down the flight meeting just one boat half way
down the flight.

We moored between The Two Boats and the lock, just in front of n.b. Lena
H, I had a quick word with Adrian before walking back to the Blue Lias
to talk to Fair Fa who were partaking of a couple of pints of Adnams.

The pound was very low and I was a bit concerned that if the water came
up our gunwale could get trapped under the top of the piling, so we take
a walk a bit further down the cut to where the concrete edging is and
decided to move down to the only set of rings available.