The road was reasonably quiet last night and the wind died right away leading to a foggy early morning.
Before we were up Magic had visited us a couple of times so he was up and about this morning. We helped him off the boat and he went for a short walk so we decided that I would ring the Vet at 9 am and cancel her visit, instead we would head home and take him to our own Vet on Monday morning, a phone call to them ended with an appointment for 9.20 am. I can’t see him like he was yesterday tea time again, its not fair on him.
Andrew set off first at 9 45 am winding right outside the engine
room door. he had managed to get a booking for Stanground Lock for 1.45 and was planning on a bit of shopping first. We followed a little after 10 am. In a field beside the river was a flock of Egrets, I have only ever seen them in ones and twos before.
By the foot bridge there is an interesting old boat, I am not sure what it was and I doubt it will ever get returned to its former glory.
It was in this condition the first time we ever came this way.
We found LT moored to the railings in Peterborough, Andrew was onboard and Wendy getting a bit of shopping in, so we pulled along side, The river was down by a good 6” from yesterday and there was absolutely no discernable flow, we just came along side and only started to move when the wind freshened slight. The swans were out in good numbers squabbling with each other
and even a few rowers for good measure, I am not sure why they have to go flat out on the busiest section of the river when there are a nice couple of miles of straight river that hardly anyone uses just a bit further down stream. The pumpout system in Peterborough has been out of action for some little time, but there is a phone number to ring and they will send a man out with a portable pumpout unit to empty your tanks into an adjacent manhole. I call that good service especially as the pumpout is free.
We arrived at Stanground Lock at 1 45 for our 2 pm locking and the lock keeper waved us straight in. As we locked down I measured the depth of water in the centre of the old part of the lock and it was just 3 feet. The other side of the lock, still on the lock moorings was LT. Andrew had just replaced the alternator belt that snapped as he entered the lock so as we set off he followed us. It wasn’t long before anther boat “Flying Fox” caught us up and passed Andrew just after this bridge.
Its the same bridge that we met a boat at 2 days ago. At Whittlesey we went straight to the lock landing, LT were planning to moor in Whittlesey but the boat between us pulled into the only vacant mooring spot. As we were turning the lock a gent and a boy walked down the park each with a windlass and climbed the railings surrounding the lock. It turned out they were not mooring for the night but heading for March and they had dropped onto the visitor moorings as it was an easy place to get ashore. They helped us through the lock and just as we were departing, their boat left the visitor moorings and Andrew and Wendy on LT arrived at a now vacant mooring. After the lock it was an uneventful run back to our mooring other than the amount of blanket weed we picked up which mad it hard work for the engine. Once moored I removed a large ball of it from the prop.
We will be driving home in the morning.
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