Monday 5 November 2012 Home Moorings

Last night again we had heavy rain, but this morning we woke to a bright blue sky. The other thing we woke to was the Old River Nene, part of The Middle Level that flows through March,

The flow on the Old River Nene

which is normally a mill pond was flowing as fast as the River Cam was a couple of days ago. About a mile further along we could see why the water was moving so fast, they are pumping the drainage dykes on the Middle Level as fast as they can.
The levels were up by several inches and I had to remove the chimney and exhaust to get under a couple of the bridges.

Just over an hour later we were back at our moorings and as I slid into our berth I could see that the next door boat was listing a bit. We moor nose on and there is a small dolphin with mooring rings about 30 foot out so we have to moor using a centre rope and as the water was probably 10” higher than last week his centre line was pulling him over, so I slacked it off for him. The boat on the other side of us is a very old motorised butty with a step mounted on the side of the back cockpit, this had got wedged under the top of a steel mooring bollard. After I pushed it out it bobbed up a good 4” above it.
I moored up with a bit of slack so I expect next time we visit the boat will be all over the show.