Wednesday 23 May 2012

We set off at 10 am this morning heading for St Ives lock. The weather was warm but very overcast, it did improve after lunch but was quite humid and the sun never really got through. The lock landing down stream of St Ives is much better now but there is still the bulge just before you enter the lock.We had just set the lock and Diana was opening the guillotine when a cruiser turned up, but he didn’t fancy sharing and said he needed a cup of tea before doing the lock, so we left him to it.

There was a fair amount of water flowing through the weir and quite a strong current by the lock landing and at normal revs I was edging towards the lock quite slowly. By the time we were ready to leave the lock the chap behind was waiting to turn it.

We continued upstream passing a boat yard on our right which had a handy boat lifting cradle.

As we passed Huntington just before the A14 bridge there was an ex-survival craft moored, I don’t think I would fancy cruising the rivers in this, but I bet the engine is very low hour. ∟The ones we use to use didn’t clock up 100 hrs. per year and of course were really well maintained.
You need to keep your eye on the ball as you approach Brampton Lock. You can see the entrance to the lock straight ahead of you but if you take that route you will almost certainly be in trouble in the silt. You have to turn hard left and follow a narrow semi-circular channel that brings you out at right angles to the lock. There is plenty of damage visible where boats have failed to then make the 90 deg turn into the lock mouth. This photo is actually looking backwards from the tail of the lock so the channel is to the right. You can just see the arrow board behind the right hand gate beam. After this lock we carried on for another couple of miles or so to moor on the GOBA moorings at Mailers Meadow.