Just when it was all going so well

 

The day began well. We had an early start, not lingering for the bacon sandwiches after all, but leaving Norbury Junction at 7.30 a.m. By 10.00 a.m. we were at Wheaton Aston, filling up with diesel, emptying the loo and filling up with water. Then, fortified by coffee and snickers, it was onwards and downwards (well, after going UP the Wheaton Aston lock) towards Autherley Junction – actually, not downwards at all, as there’s a long level pound between Wheaton and the Junction, alternating between high embankments and deep narrow cuttings which are dense and dark and green with overhanging trees. We saw three kingfishers in quick succession. Lunch was taken on the go. I was just beginning to think that there would be nothing to write about in the blog tonight, and I would have to conjure up a ‘filler’ in the shape of a Church review (BCP evensong at St Michael’s Marbury, which had been bumped out of an earlier blog by the dramatic events (queue jumping) at Marbury Locks), when we encountered problems at Compton Lock.

A boat was waiting to go down, and there was a boat coming up. Then someone came running towards us from the lock to say that the lock wasn’t filling, the bottom gates were leaking too badly, the lock had partly filled but had then reached a point where the water coming in was balanced by the water leaking out. A crowd soon gathered to make suggestions. The lock was emptied again, and the bottom gates reopened and then re-closed – we all thought they had closed better this time, were a tighter fit, so we started filling the lock again. All seemed to go ok until about 12 inches from the top, when again, the water stopped rising. We managed to wedge the top gate open a little, first with a windlass and then with a length of wood (the handy ‘wooden windlass’ that I’d been kindly given by a boater on the outward journey), and together with the efforts of a lot of people pushing the gate and a bit of shoving from the boat itself (NOT good practice, but sometimes desperate measures are called for) we managed to get the lock filled and the gate open, so that boat was out. As it left, we could hear the skipper on the phone to CRT, reporting the problem. ‘They’ll be here within an hour,’ he promised us.

The boat in front of us was of course now able to go down. And through and off they went, leaving Ernest and I suddenly without the previous crowd of able-bodied persons – just an elderly (ish) woman with a bicycle who had sat on a bench watching the whole performance and who then immediately got on her bike and disappeared, perhaps anxious that she might be roped in to help us, and three even older fishermen, at least one of them on crutches, who also suddenly packed up their gear and went home for tea. Ernest and I decided we would see if we could repeat what had been done earlier, and we almost had the lock full – perhaps 6 inches from the top (with our windlass wedging the top gate partly open) when a CRT man appeared in his white van, and told us to stop, and to close the top paddles. He was probably right to do so – apparently the pound above the lock had dropped by about 2 inches, with all the water that had been let through.

Kevin, as we learned he was called, was not happy. What a day for such a problem to happen! Most of the local CRT men, he told us, were on crowd control duty or something at the big Black Sabbath event in the middle of Birmingham (you’ll have to google it if you want to know more, I can’t be bothered). He’d been left in sole charge of 40 miles of canal. And he needed to get away by 4.00 p.m. to go and collect his daughter from the airport. And you know what traffic is like near the airport… Kevin spent five minutes or so looking at the bottom gates, opening and shutting them, and drawing his breath in through his teeth in that way that plumbers have just before they tell you how much they will charge to repair your leaking pipe. If only he had a longer pole. If only all the other men weren’t at the Black Sabbath event. If only he didn’t have to pick up his daughter. He would just have to leave it to the On Call team, who would be on duty from 4.00 p.m. (it was by now about 3.15p.m.). He put a call through to his handlers. And at the same time Ernest was on the phone to CRT, emphasising that we were on a tight schedule because of the time we had been marooned up the Llangollen. A man appeared from another boat moored a little way above the lock. He confirmed that he had come up through the lock about an hour earlier, and it had worked perfectly fine. So it sounded as if something had perhaps got caught below the bottom gates and was preventing them shutting properly.

I retreated to the boat to make a cup of tea (always a good plan), while Kevin departed to collect his daughter, and the man from the other moored boat waited with Ernest and listened patiently to his tales of woe.
We were eventually saved by the wonderful ‘Baz’ from CRT, presumably from the On Call team. He brought with him a really long rake, and spent only a little time looking at the gates and the water before actually doing something – ie raking about at the bottom of the lock near the bottom gates, then opening some top paddles and sort of whooshing the water through to clear whatever obstruction might be there. He thought there was a 50/50 chance of success, but hooray! And thank you to Baz! By 4.30 p.m. we were able to fill the lock and go through it.

Could we make up lost time? Well, it wasn’t raining, so we fortified ourselves again with tea and cake, and pressed on. The lock keeper at the Bratch had gone home, but we decided to work these locks ourselves, having read the detailed instructions carefully, twice: this is a ‘set of locks’ not a staircase, and the method is to open blue paddles and blue gates before red paddles and red gates (‘blue before red or you’re dead’), allowing the side ponds to sort the water levels out. It’s a very clever piece of canal engineering.

I was glad I’d seen it work with the lock keeper and volunteers when we came up – and had learned from the mistakes made by the volunteers then. It’s very simple really, if you follow the instructions to the letter, and much simpler when there’s only one boat going through.

After that it was just a question of finding a good mooring for the night, but that took some time, as we rejected sites near industrial estates or under pylons and power lines, and ended up going through 3 more locks before finally mooring at 8.15 p.m. and rewarding ourselves with a G&T/beer before tucking in to sausages, mash and beans.

14 locks and 25 miles in 10.4 engine hours.

The only other thing to report is that Ernest put his foot through the back deck, which we knew was rotten and has been repaired once and now needs replacing. No damage done to the foot, thankfully.

The Great Escape

We both slept badly and woke early. Well before 7.00 a.m., there was considerable activity up near the lock. A boat came by, heading for the lock – a boat we had seen moored about a mile further back. This must be the boat who had been told by CRT that they would go through the lock first.

Apparently, this boat had been caught out by the canal collapse and closure, when just above Marbury Lock. CRT said to them, not to worry, they needn’t stay near the lock, they could reverse back up the canal, and CRT had been visiting regularly to bring fresh water and take away their rubbish. I don’t know about their loo! So that boat had waited the week and a half in the same place, whereas other boats had used the time to go back up the Llangollen a bit, or like us, had left their boats and gone home. But the ‘no. 1 boat’ were continuous cruisers and didn’t have a home to go too. So, what would be fair in the circumstances?

Opinions differed!

By the time Ernest had finished brushing his teeth and had rushed up to the lock to see what was what, there was a full slanging match going on between various skippers and the skipper of the ‘no. 1 boat’. I’m sad to say that the skipper of the boat with the ‘Boaters Christians Fellowship’ sticker (which happened to be the boat that we discovered had manoeuvred itself into pole position by the lock last night) did not cover himself with glory and did nothing to commend the Christian faith to others. To call the man on the ‘no. 1 boat’ selfish and a liar, but then to say, ‘but I forgive you’ – well, I wonder, what sort of God does that ‘Christian’ believe in? Presumably a God who is constantly angry with us, but nevertheless says ‘I forgive you’ in a way that makes none of us feel or behave any better.

I only heard all this second hand from Ernest. I’m pleased to say that Ernest was brave enough to call various people out on their unreasonable and unpleasant behaviour and language.

Meanwhile, the really Good News was that the CRT lock keeper had appeared, and the lock was unlocked. The bad news was that we were initially told only perhaps 6 boats would go through. More would be allowed through at the end of the afternoon. Since by this time we were 13th in the queue (because of the various bits of queue jumping), we were beginning to resign ourselves to being delayed until tomorrow.

But, alleluia – an amazing team of windlass winders and gate pushers sprang into action. Whether CRT wanted it or not, it was taking less than five minutes to get each  boat through the lock. I’d already started pulling our boat forwards, as movement ahead began – actually, the lovely man on the boat in front, Mick I think his name was, tied my front rope to his stern, and pulled us both slowly along. But then we needed to pass a holiday hire boat that was empty and still moored and not moving. I ran to get Ernest – he had loned his windlass to a holiday hire company man who was working the bottom gates with extreme energy (presumably hoping to get his two boats, nearly at the end of the queue, through if at all possible) – Ernest ran back to our boat, threw me another windlass, and I ran back to the lock to start helping too. Unbelievably, it looked as if we would go through. The lock keeper was in radio contact with his boss down at the stoppage site, and I was sure that the message would soon come ‘no more boats’ – but Mick went through, and then it was us – no stopping us now.

Twenty minutes later (8.50 a.m.) we came to the stoppage site – and followed instructions, ie go slowly, cut our engine when we came to the bit where they’d put tarpaulin across the collapsed bank and down into the canal (to protect it from further collapse) and let the flow carry us through – a couple of boat lengths – then we were away again.

We later learned that CRT had, wisely in my view, bowed under the pressure and let the whole queue through.

Now if only they had said at the beginning that they would do that, it would have avoided a lot of aggro and unpleasantness, and maybe fewer people would be having guilty feelings tonight (I hope some of them are feeling guilty).

Drama over, the rest of the day was relatively uneventful. Slow progress to begin with, as there were several lift bridges and locks to deal with, and when you’ve got a whole convoy of boats close behind each other, it’s bound to be slow. But gradually, one by one, boats dropped out of the convoy, including the Boaters Christian Fellowship boat which only went about half a mile beyond the stoppage until it came to a winding hole, where it turned round and WENT BACK UP THROUGH THE STOPPAGE AND THROUGH THE LOCK! So why oh why hadn’t it done what other boats did when the canal was first closed, which was to accept help from CRT in reversing back through the Grindley Locks where it could then have turned round and gone on its merry way up the Llangollen.

Oh well…

We cruised on, taking lunch and drinks on the move. The heavy clouds that had threatened rain cleared away, and the sun reappeared. It grew hot and humid. We pressed on, down the Hurleston Locks and, hooray, we had escaped the Llangollen (or the Golli as the in crowd call it). Smooth passage past Nantwich (where more escapees we’re making good use of the sanitary facilities) and on towards Audlem. Began to encounter holiday hire boats again, some more confident and proficient than others. Onwards and upwards for us, past the charming community garden/allotment at Audlem bottom lock, pausing briefly at Audlem sanitary station and water point, which is right by the Shroppie Fly pub, where too many people were enjoying their cool pints of beer

and finally to our overnight mooring above Audlem Lock 12. Refreshing showers for both of us, clean clothes, and Charlie Bingham pies for dinner.

16 Locks, 3 lift bridges and 16 miles in 9.6 engine hours.

PS For an alternative perspective on the day’s events, and a view of Babushka’s and Ernest’s rear end, please see another boater’s blog: http://vivatek.co.uk