Waverton Friday 23 February 2018

Firstly an explanation for non boater about yesterdays crochet wall hanging. Its on memory of Joe Skinner an old boatman who worked his boat with a horse, his boat is preserved in the museum. So to the top right hand corner we have Josh for Joe and to the left his Skinner and down the centre his boat name Friendship

along the bottom is the boat number. He and his boat was quite famous more information here .

This morning we left a little earlier than planned, 0945hrs. as Diana spotted a boat going passed heading for the staircase lock so we rapidly set off to join them. As the tree locks are wide enough for two boats it halves the workload and water usage if two boats share. It turned out they moor in the next marina up from us and had just spent a week in the Chester dry dock having the boat hull blacked and are hoping to get home before any ice forms on the canal. I looks as if the pigeon lady had been out again by the bottom of the locks as there was loads of food laying about, but not so many birds as yesterday.

For some reason the towpath below the City wall has been closed off, I couldn't see an obvious reason for it as everything looked fine.

We moored in the town to do a bit of shopping, the weather felt quite warm in the sun but in the shadow of the town walls you could feel the true temperature.

After an early lunch we were away again leaving at the same time as the restaurant boat The L’eau-t Cuisine, she travels backwards from the Mill Hotel to the City walls and then forwards up one or two locks and then backwards down again to the hotel, picking up the main course of the lunch from the hotel as they pass going upstream. I wish I had the same control going backwards as her, but she does also have a prop and rudder at the bows which helps.

As the boat we had shared the staircase locks with had carried on all the locks were against us except one where we met a single boat coming down. Again the sun was very nice even if the air was cold and we carried on to moor just after bridge 118 Davies Bridge, the water is deeper here than where we moored on our way down so we can get close to the bank.

Today's Journey 4¾ Miles, 8 Locks in 3½ hours.