Curdworth locks Mon 6 July 2020

First trip out since the shutdown came on. First problem is trying to remember how Open Live Writer works, but at least now I am on Windows 10 I have a spell checker on it, it still wont know what word I wanted to use but it will save a bit of work.
We left home just before 9am and were at Alvecote just after mid day thanks to the great improvements along the A14.

The boat was in good shape, rather a lot of water in the bilge which was strange because I turned the stern greaser before I left. The engine started first turn of the key and the domestic bank were well up thanks to the small solar panels I have..
It was just on 2PM when we left the marina, the plan. Always have a plan, the plan was to leave the marina and turn right heading for the bottom of the Atherstone flight for tonight, however lock 10 on the Atherstone flight is bust so we turned left.  Between Alvecote and Fazeley we met 9 or 10 boats heading towards Atherstone so the queue by tonight will be even longer. We struck lucky at Tamworth with the top lock full and a boat coming up in the bottom lock, by the time we reached the bottom lock there was another boat waiting to come up, so the only gats we closed were top ones.

At Fazeley junction we turned sharp left on the Birmingham and Fazeley canal towards Curdworth, it wasn’t long before we passed John and Jan making their boat ready to set off, they are also heading Atherstone way but not leaving until Wednesday so we may see them later.  We carried on towards the Curdworth, but as we had no intention of going up the flight I let a following cruiser pass us so that I could just chug slowly as far as the winding hole, here we turned ( I made a right mess of it) and we headed back to moor for the night by the Gravel Pit Bridge.

Once moored up I gave the bilge a dose of looking at. The container under the stern gland was bone dry and floating around the bilge, as I bailed the water out I found the port side deck drain blocked so it must have been rain water coming in during one of the downpours over the past 3 months. A quick poke with the drain wire soon had it on its way. The bilge is not fully dry as I got fed up laying on my chest bailing out, I will do some more tomorrow.

Todays journey  8.7 miles, 2 locks in 3.25 hours,