Saturday 6 April 2013 Five Miles from Anywhere

Last night when we went to the pub for diner we were the only boat on the moorings, when we came out a couple of hours later there was a Narrowboat moored in behind us, he must have been dead lucky to get through Hermitage lock last night.

We left this morning at 10 am. the wind had moderated a lot and it was a bit warmer, as I write this it 12°C. The river had come up another 4” over night but didn’t seem to be flowing fast. What were fields when we came up are now lakes.

At Brownhills lock the guillotine gates are completely under water when shut. The sluices are fully open but the level is the same both sides being held back by the flow down to Kings Lynn and the height of the tide. From here we had to call the Hermitage lock keeper as there are no pontoons above his lock. As we left the lock it looks as if the EA are going to replace the two floating barges with proper floating pontoons some time soon.

The levels through Earith were also higher with just odd spots of land visible where there should be fields.

 

Most the the equipment has been removed from the services so at least you can get water now.

Arriving at hermitage Lock we found the other pontoons moored waiting for completion. Also the Earith road bridge over the New Bedford River is closed today foe repairs, so they had a barge moored in there to work from. There was just enough head room to get it under.By now another Narrowboat had caught us up but the lock is not big enough to take two so he had to hang around and wait for the lock to turn. The lock keeper did this straight away not even letting a waiting boat come up to save time.

The Old West river seemed a bit low on level, well the signs said “Submerged piling” but it was about 3” above the surface. We chugged along meeting a few boats until we reached Popes Corner where we turned right up the Cam, the flow was now noticeable and we carried on to Upware where we planned to go through Reach Lock to the Lodes. However the lock gate was wide open, it is normally closed as its an automatic flood control lock. Nether the green to enter or red to stay out lights were on, but all lights on the panel were showing correctly. We went in but were unable to operate the lock, so it was a case of reversing out again, not helped by a boat moored on the lock landing. Maybe they were waiting to go through, but there was no one about. Backing out I picked up a blade full that included polly bags and a length of 8mm rope with a chain link on the end, which made an interesting noise as it spun round hitting the swim.
I reversed onto the pub moorings where I removed the offending items by cutting it up with a Stanley Knife. We will stay here for the night now. The pub is quite busy with people sitting out in the garden drinking.

Friday 5 April 2013 The Pike and Eel

Last nights mooring proved to be more peaceful than we had hoped for. That was after the cruiser moored at the other end moorings shut his petrol generator of at twenty to midnight. These moorings are provided by St Ives town council and I can fully understand residents wanting moorings closed if that’s what they have to put up with night after night. We only stopped the one night but the cruisers were there when we called in for water earlier in the week and were still there when we left this afternoon.

This morning started off sunny but the cool wind soon freshened which chilled things down again. We spent the morning wandering round town, there was a produce sale in the Corn Exchange which reminded me of our holiday in Bulgaria many years ago. You see what you and a lady serves you with it, she then writes out a chit of paper that you give to another lady sitting at a table by the door and she takes your money, another lady collates all the slips of paper into little piles.

St Ives also has a street market on a Friday but we saw nothing we wanted, we did get some Adnams and Shepherds Neame beer from Budgens at £1 a bottle. 

The bridge in St Ives is interesting for a couple of reasons, one it has a Chapel built in the middle of the river on it and is only one of three in the Country like it and secondly the arches one side of the Chapel are not the same as the other. This is because half the bridge was dismantled and made into a draw bridge to stop invasions of the town.More info HERE

The road from the bridge carries on out of town on a raised causeway to allow the flood waters to flow through it and get away, to me it looks as if the far two arches have subsided a bit.

St Ives lock was against us so while Diana turned the lock I took the opportunity to just go over some of the rust I had treated with a coat of primer/undercoat. hopefully I can put another coat on the the morning.

I had just about finished by the time the lock was ready, but if we stayed all day it is unlikely we would have inconvenienced anyone. Once finished it was down in the lock and a gentle run to planned mooring for the night outside The Pike and Eel again.
The temperature actually managed double figures again but it never felt warm in the stiff breeze.

Thursday April 4 2013 St Ives “The Waits”

When we were last in St Ives we didn’t top up with water, well it was only a couple of days to St Neots. By the time we went to bed the water tank level was not happy so the decision was made, no more showers until the tank is full.

We left at 10-30 and it was trying to snow, the wind had moderated since last night and was behind us. St Neots her we come. All the locks were against us and had to be turned. In most cases this meant dropping the guillotine with a press of a button, drawing the paddles on the lower gates and then open the gates manually before entering the lock. To fill the lock is a sort of reversed procedure but you only need to close the gates manually and then lift the guillotine on the press of a button, however that press of a button only lifts the guillotine by 4” there is then a time delay to allow the lock to fill under the guillotine before you can fully open it, this is normally about two minutes.

The odd one out is St Neots, the guillotine is at the bottom so to turn the lock you have to lift it to let the lock empty. It is also a very long lock so holds a lot of water so the timer is set to 5 minutes and even though there is not a boat in the lock to get bashed about with high water flows the timer still operates, or should.
When we tried to open the guillotine at St Neots it moved not 4 inches but about a quarter, the motor didn’t cut out, it was still trying to drag the gate up, you could feel the concrete vibrating. Pressing the closed button allowed it to drop a quarter on an inch and go back to sleep. We tried cycling it like this a few times and then left it struggling for a few minutes, still the timer had not started to count down. One last ditch attempt, close and open the guillotine and it came up its 4” and the timer started, another 5 minutes and we would be able to open it fully. I might add that this was a complete new guillotine unit last year.
We worked through the lock and headed for the town centre where there is a water tap, you have probably realized by now there are not many of these about. Pulling onto the floating pontoon outside the Priory Centre there on the wall was our precious water tap, the only problem was there was no water in it. It must have been drained for the winter but no one has turned the supply on again.

There is only one thing we can do and that is turn round and head back down stream. The first obstacle other than the hail/snow which was now blowing straight into my eyes as we are going the other way, was St Neots Lock, there it sat just as we left it and it was going to play the same game. 4attemps to get it to lift before it would move that first 4”, then the 5 minute timer, even this is not long enough as the level still had 7-8” to go when it timed out and allowed Diana to lift the guillotine gate fully, this resulted in the water surging out, and because of the length of the lock it actually goes lower than the river so surges back in again, but we were free to go.

We headed off down stream, the water levels looked a bit low if anything but the flow was helping us along, all the rest of the locks were in our favour so we could steam straight in and as all the rest have their guillotines at the top end and were open already, we didn’t have to wait for any timers. We met a couple of boats on the way down, the first an EA inspection launch right on a bend in a narrow part, he was definitely going a bit slower after that and a private cruiser.

Our EA guide indicated that there was a water point at Huntington, this is just below Godmanchester so I took a few photos of the flood defence work going on, you can see the three foot high walls right in front of some of the properties with waterproof gates in them. On the river bank at the junction they have cast the wall but are covering it in top soil.

We were unable to locate the supposed water point at Huntingdon so we had no option to carry on down stream to St Ives where there is a water point in “The Waits” behind Holt’s Island This involved a 350° turn by the rowing club but with a wide rive and no traffic was not a problem. We filled with water and decided to spend the night here as its quite sheltered from the wind,did I tell you it has been gusting 38MPH today straight into my face? We have been advised not to overnight here due to drunks using the benches, but we have stopped before with no problem and the way the weather is I can’t see may people with cans of larger sitting out tonight, in addition to that there are a couple of live aboard boats moored ahead and they wouldn’t be hanging about if there were problems.

So a couple of hours turned into almost eight and we are 4 locks further downstream than we intended.

Sorry if its smelly, I am just off for a shower!

Wednesday 3 April 2013 Mailer’s Meadow

When we moored up last night one of the GOBA mooring signs was well covered in undergrowth, so this morning I set to with the shears and cleaned things up a bit. I was going to put a self tappet to hold the ally sheet back to the frame, but when I looked closely it was a bit beyond that with the ally bent and the print delaminating.

As Found	Well bent
As left after a clean up

It was a nice sunny morning but a biting wind, unlike yesterday afternoon, so it was insulated overalls again and more cold remedies. We had a slight problem at Hemingford Lock, there is a sand bar three quarters of the way across the river below the lock running out from the lower end of the lock landings. You could well ask how do I know, well I went hard aground and was surprised how far to the left I had to go to clear it. Luckily the gates were open because I would have had great problems putting anyone ashore without them climbing the railings (Its an EA thing, all locks enclosed by railings). Once in the lock there is a nice little drawing showing the sand bar, by now I knew thank you. There is also a notice saying there are navigation buoys. No there’s not!

Diagram showing sand

Notice about buoys

That out of the way we carried on up stream with the rest of the lock against us for the morning. We met a couple of hire cruisers and a Narrowboat from Ely and also the St John’s trip boat running down empty.

Passing through Godmanchester we spotted an ex-offshore survival craft, these are over engineered mechanically, very heavy glass resin hulled and well maintained whilst in service. They spend a majority of there life hanging on a pair of davits, go  in the water a few times a year but with no windows are very claustrophobic and very limited visibility. I don’t think I would want one like this on the inland waterways. As we passed through Godmanchester they are still well into the flood prevention schema which seems to have been going on for a year and the disruption to the residents must be horrendous. They are setting a reinforced concrete wall into the ground and then ether banking it up or face brickwork finishing all the way along between the houses and the river starting just above the A14 and going up above Godmanchester lock.  It is claimed it will reduce the risk of flooding from 1 in 20 years to 1 in 100 years and is expected to cost  £6.8M and take 3 years to complete.

Once through Godmanchester lock we backed down to the town basin to post some mail and have lunch. Once upon a time there was an EA visitor mooring right by the lock in the entrance to the basin but the EA closed it as being unsafe, they were right, the whole lot has now fallen into the water and the town visitor moorings are not far behind. Maybe they will build some new ones in the flood defence system with a bit of luck.

After lunch we we set off a bit further upstream, by now the wind was gusting 25mph even though it was over 7°C it didn’t feel very warm. We turned up the narrow semicircular channel to Brampton Lock, this is now also very badly silted on the inside of the bend. I was very pleased to find the lock ready as in this wind it would have been a so and so to have got back off the lock landing.  We pushed on a short way to the GOBA moorings at Mailers Meadow where we have moored for the night

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Last nights meal in the Pike and Eel was one of the best meals I have had out in a long time. Not only was the food first class with lots of freshly prepared fresh vegetables the quantity was very generous as well. We had what they call a “Bar Snack” it is exactly the same as served in the restaurant but eaten in the lounge or conservatory, also you have to collect your utensils and condemners. Very few people use the restaurant unless its something special. we sat in the conservatory watching the sun say good night in an all blue sky. I still can’t get over being the only boat moored here, I even had to take a picture as we left this morning.

We woke to brilliant sun and not a breath of wind, but the grass was white and the marina covered in ice. We pushed of at twenty past ten and the wind had picked up quite a bit. Again I was glad that I knew where the river should be.

One of our thought for stopping last night was The Old Ferry Inn at Holywell, but it was just as well we stopped at the Pike and Eel as the quay at Holywell now has a big “No Mooring” sign.

The reach up from Holywell was a bit slow as the water tends to funnel through there but it soon eased.
I actually saw a double decker bus on the guided way bridge, its the first I have seen. I was very surprised they didn’t paint the steel under the bridge.
St Ives lock was set against us so we tied up and I gave Diana a hand to turn it, well I lent on the top balance beam to hold the top gates shut, that’s helping. I have been suffering from rather a bad cold ever since we have been out this trip and by now I was feeling really sorry for my self, so we decided once in St Ives we would moor in The Waits and Diana would go and buy more pills and potions. While she was shopping I had a little sleep which seemed to improve matters and later we went for a look round the Norris Museum which stands right beside the river.

We decided that we would move out of town for the night so we have gone a short way upstream to the GOBA moorings at Noble’s Fields

Monday 1 April 2013 Pike and Eel

It is a nice quiet mooring by the Old Engine House at Stretham with just a faint dawn chorus this morning at silly o’clock. the only downside was the amount and size of the dog muck up by the road.
A little after 8 am the hire boat moored in front of us left to get back to Ely, its a pity the one that came along three quarters of an hour later didn’t have the sense to leave early then he wouldn’t have needed to go so fast. When I let go at ten our mooring pin had been pulled through the ground by about 3”.

It was bitterly cold as we made our way along the Old West River to Hermitage Lock passing the Lazy Otter on the way. A few flurries of snow but mainly dull and cold.
I pulled against the landing stage below the lock and walked up to see the lock keeper, is office is the other side of a busy road that crosses the lock making it bit of a concrete tunnel. As I reached the gate onto the road I could see both the lock keeper and a narrowboat coming the other way, so it was only a short wait until they were coming out and we could go it.At the moment there is no lock landing above the lock, so boats coming down ring ahead and the keeper has the lock ready for them. We were to find the new floating lock landing sections with a barge and a tug all moored to the service point at Erith, these take up a fair amount of the river and with it being rather high you cant see where the banks are.I am very glad I have been this way before as with so much water the banks of the river could be anywhere. This tree is just sitting in a vast expanse of water, you can just see a bit of the bank in the distance, but you have to know which side of it to pass. When you first leave Hermitage lock there are a row of red buoys that get you started on the right track because that end is always wide and shallow, but they are not a lot of help when you are a mile upstream.

Eventually we came to Brownhills Staunch where all the sluice gates were fully open. This put the lock on the level but you still have to wait 2 minutes for the lock to equalise before you can fully lift the gate. Had the level been any higher then both gates would have been underwater.

Not far above Brownhills Staunch on your right you come to The Pike and Eel, this is a very popular riverside pub and you are normally very lucky indeed if there is room to moor a Narrowboat, not today, there was not another boat in site, although one did come in moor behind us not long after we arrived. As I type they have just left and gone into the marina, The wind has picked up to a steady 20mph and things are rattling a bit, I will have to check round later or it will probably keep us awake tonight.

If you click on this map link  you can see what the river should look like where the landing stages are moored..

Easter Sunday 31 March 2013 Stretham Steam Pump House

Even with the clocks changing we managed to be away by 10-30 am. I was sunny and didn’t feel anywhere near as cold as the last few days, even though there was ice in the reed fringe but the temperature actually got above 7°C for a short time. We had 2 cruisers moor ahead of us last night, so I went up through the bridge before winding, to be well away from them. Not long after leaving the Lark they both overtook us.

We turned left onto the Gt Ouse and made our way to Ely. Due to the bends in the river the railway line actually crossed the river twice before you get to the town. The first crossing is at Adelaide where there is major work going on from a floating scaffold.I am not sure that the warning signs are truly CEVNI approved, but I may well be wrong, also I didn’t speed up as instructed. We stopped in Ely to take on water and the Willow Man who use to moor at the Fish and Duck was moored at what some people consider to be a winding hole, but from what I have heard its a piece of no-mans land so there is no mooring restriction on it. Once full of water we continued through the town and headed to Popes Corner, the site of the redeveloped Fish and Duck moorings.

 

 

 

 

We then continued up the Old West River a short way before mooring on the EA moorings. This was so I could tackle some of the rust that is now coming through on that side. The worst spots are where the white line is cut in and a bit above a porthole.

  I sanded these down using a random orbital sander but it gave up the ghost half way through with the pad disintegrating, I have only had it 15 years. Anyway once the area was sanded and treated with Kurerust we were on our way again to Stretham Steam pumping house.

The GOBA moorings have now been moved and you can moor right outside the pump house.
This is the only remaining, completed steam engine and Fen drainage pump of this type in existence. It was in use until 1925 and still on standby in 1941. Unfortunately it is no longer steamed but rotated by an electric motor. All three boilers are still there and she use to burn a ton of coal per hour with just one fireman.

It was later replaced with a 4 cylinder diesel engine driving a centrifugal pump. You will see that each cylinder has its on crank lubrication system.

  

 

 

 

We will now stay moored here for the night.