Ramsay St Mary Wednesday 28 Aug 2013

Last weekend the Middle Level Watermans Club celebrated their 50 anniversary on their new moorings by the Marylebone foot bridge from the park.The site was donated to the MLWC and they have named it Skouldings Rest in memory of their benefactor. This morning a group of them were hard at work clearing things away. When Diana returned from shopping we reversed back to the service block near the town bridge to fill with water. We didn’t need much but our next chance will be Peterborough.
One of the riverside houses in March looks a real picture with their flowers.

We made a brief stop at Fox’s boatyard to pick up a pen I won in their location competition that they run on Facebook. then it was off passed our old moorings at Floods Ferry, only one face to wave at us but lots of the others were out boating who we saw earlier.

We turned sharp left to follow the route of the Old River Nene down to Benwick, I pulled over to the moorings to get a better photo of the new foot bridge, I do think its pleasing on the eye. The footpath behind the moorings is closed but we only saw the sign when we reached the end. The reason for the closure is flood defence work and its being carried out in an interesting way. They have piled the ground behind the foot path then clad the piling in what looks like master board with brick tiles attached. It looks as if they intend to top this section along the cemetery with fencing when complete, further along it just ends as a dwarf wall. I would imagine it will be filled with concrete. The work continues all the way along the front of all the riverside properties with an earth bank by the agricultural land.

It was not long before we started to experience blanket weed coming up under the boat so progress was slow at times, we actually met another boat along this section, I hope their cratch was low enough to get under White Fen farm bridge, if not they have a long way to go back.

When we reached Wells Bridge we turned right to Lodes End Lock, the difference in level was about 2 inches. The lock is designed so that if the level to the West of the lock rises it flows through the lock to the east and gets pumped away, if the level to the east rises like it does in winter then the lock gates prevent the water flowing to the west.

After the lock the weed was worse with different types of weed to contend with, we continued on through the village of Ramsey St Mary until we were opposite the old wind pump where the growth on the bank was a bit less and I had a chance of getting ashore, well if I got against the side I could. In the end I dropped a mud weight at each end and here we sit in the lily patch. I could have jumped from the stern, but as I had no idea what I was jumping into I decided against it.

Quite often in the past I have put a photo of a plane at the end of my blog, this one came over today.