BOATS AND CANALS

Incidentally the stupid bird with whom I travel is Jo ...............no I mean it’s Dotterel.

A Dotterel is a stupid bird who lays its eggs on the ground and wonders why they get eaten. We had originally intended to rname her but it just seemed right somehow.

We arranged to pick up the boat from Gayton on Saturday. We drove two cars to Calcutt, dropped one off there and then drove, via coffee in Daventry, to Gayton. I think coffee may feature strongly on our travels.

Our canal map had suggested 9.5 hours Gayton to Napton and we had to allow a bit more for Calcutt locks and getting into the marina. We were planning on arriving on Sunday driving from Calcutt to Gayton to pick up the car we had left there and then home.

The boat was ready, we checked out that everything we thought should be on it was and loaded all our stuff. A mechanic gave us a very comprehensive tour of the boat covering everything including how to change bits of the transmission! Of particular interest to me were things like the state of the mechanics, when was the oil filter and oil due for a change, was there anti-freeze in the engine and central heating and how did you drain the fresh water system. Finally, at 15:00, we set off.

Jo drove away from the marina. Our first crisis was turning right at Gayton Junction. The wind was blowing from the north and we ended up against the bank on the south. Reversing back up the Northampton arm we tried again this time with a rope off the front to help pull the nose into the wind. Success and off we went. We cruised about an hour and moored near Bugbrooke at dusk.

The batteries were a bit low, probably from being idle for a while, but the only effect was the radio switched off when the water pumps switched on. We had roast chicken and a bottle of wine to celebrate the first night on our boat.

Cheers Graham

This is going to be a great category Graham, it really does make a interesting read.

I like the name, glad that you didn't change it, mmmmm, if you had decided to change it, more prolonged head scratching would have followed.

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Maurice

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