Sunday May 27 2012

It was an interesting day moored at Gt.Barford. It was a good move arriving early as by lunch time it was full we even had a cruiser so close he was rubbing my bow fender and couple were breasted up. after lunch things quietened for a bit with people leaving before others arrived to take their place. One boat coming down stream caught the corner of his windscreen on the bridge smashing the glass, by the time he stopped he was half way out, but for some reason went backwards and stopped to clean up the glass, he then hit it again on his second attempt. This morning another one managed to damage his canopy. it quite a tricky angle coming downstream and when the cruisers slow down they are at the mercy of the wind.

About half a mile above Gt Barford lock there is an island, at one time this was home to a now disused lock and also a lock cottage which is still without mains electricity. There are some pleasant rural moorings behind the island on what would have been the lock cut.

As we were moored outside we ate in The Anchor again, not quite so impressed as dishes that had run out on Friday and Saturday had not been replaces so the menu was getting shorter.

It was quarter to twelve before we set off today heading down stream. Things were quiet quiet until we got to Roxton Lock with only a couple of planes doing a dog fight to keep us amused. Once through the lock  we started meeting cruisers. There is a new development just above Eaton Socon Lock that has its own moorings in a large lake. The lake was excavated to compensate for the loss of flood plain, I am not quite sure how it does that as its already full of water so has no more capacity than before it was dug.

There was a large cruiser on the Eaton Socon lock moorings and they were in the process of setting the lock, luckily this is a wide lock and they invited me to enter first which was handy as I was just bobbing in the current until then. Its not helped by the lock landing being just past the entrance to the lock just into the weir channel and not before it, so we had no where to go.

Once through the lock you are more or less into St Neots and we started to look for somewhere to moor. I tried to get alongside the park but it was far to shallow where it wasn’t piled so we moored on the floating pontoons at the front of the Priory Centre. This was not ideal as it just leads into the streets of the town, not to dog friendly, but I guessed that a lot of the boats on the better moorings would be leaving before tea time which was correct and we were able to move across the river to moor on the piled edge of the park.