Swarkestone

My word what a miserable night, thunder, lightning, wind and rain until bed time then rain most of the night and nearly all of today until about 3pm.  Our route home is closed at Alrewas due to the river being in flood and not likely to improve for a few days .
Full wet gear on and we were away at about 10am. we were going to get wet whatever time we left, and it was a miserable spot where we were. Dobson’s name is still on the yard doors, I don’t know who is building Narrowboats there now but there were at least three moored up still in primer.

The first lock we came to was with us as a boat was coming out, at least they left the gate open for us even if they did leave the offside paddle fully up. We et a chap there with a CRT jumper on and an ID card hung round his neck, turned out he was a fund raiser and was looking for the best place to stand, I suggested the pub, it was peeing down with rain but he did close up for me.
The next two locks were full and against us. I am on lock duty this trip as Diana has bit of a sore leg muscle, so into the landing stage, Diana hops of with the bow rope, I go ashore and turn the lock. Some of the flow from the bottom gates on these locks can be quite fierce so best not to try and hold the boat on a centre line.
As we came up Western Lock we could se a boat above the lock making ready to leave so we had a locking buddy for the last lock of the day . We were following at a nice speed until the boat ahead had to pull over hard to get past a fallen tree where we think they picked something up around the prop as it was a lot slow going from here.

We passed the  section with the underwater obstruction that I posted about yesterday. Chris Deuchar contacted me with this reply.
”The underwater stone has been an issue forever - primarily because I believe it is the canal bed in this cutting - and angles downward from the side.  Therefore, how far from the edge you need to travel to avoid it depends on the draught of your boat.  Mine draws some 3ft when on the move and needs to be 4-5ft from the towpath edge to avoid this.  This can be disconcerting to oncoming boats who might not realise why one is 'hogging' the centre of the channel.  So, when eastbound, it is a good idea to be ready to give way to any oncoming, westbound craft just west of bridge 11 and the adjacent railway bridge.”
At bridge 12 I met Joules Fuels coming the other way, thankfully spotted in time to just slid over to the offside and pass without problem. Although by now the actual rain had turned to showers there was still much bad weather around us.

A boat was coming out of Swarkestone lock as we approached, unfortunately the single hander had already closed up when the boat ahead arrived,. Both boats were soon in the lock and on their way up, the steerer apologised for his slow progress and thought he had a fouled prop, from his wash I agreed with him, so once out of the lock he pulled over to investigate, we carried on another 3 to 400mt to moor for the night just prior to the waterpoint, the same spot we had lunch at the other day.

Today’s journey

6 miles, 4 locks in 3 hours