July 2007
We've just had a weekend trip on the boat with the Grandkids (they are 18 months). We went up the Northern Oxford again but only as far as Hillmorton. Getting out of the marina was fun again. We made it out of the mooring OK with the wind taking the front end to the right so we went anti-clockwise around the island. This left a shape right turn into the gap between the two marinas. To borrow a term from the course book of sailing, 'we were seized by a giant hand' and despite our best effort couldn't get the bows into wind enough to avoid smacking both sides of the exit simultaneously. :blink: Getting out onto the canal was fine though. We went up Calcutt locks by ourselves despite trying to share it with another boat, they wanted to wait for the friends. We moored just past Napton Junction as it was kids tea time. They loved being on the boat, the mods to enable us to enclose the semi-trad deck worked fine and my cot sides made out of the pipe cots hung vertically worked a treat
Next day we set off, cruised a little and moored at Braunston, on the Puddle banks, just behind a continuously cruising boat inhabited by some friendly hippy types (being a bit that way ourselves we always get on with hippies). They had painted their boat in a very unorthodox, graphic style, we quite liked it but I think it may be over the top for some. They were trying to repair their rudder having got it caught on the cill coming down Napton flight. We gave a hand providing some weight for a bit of towpath metalworking.
The canal was very busy seeming like a motorway again. We found a gap in the traffic and set off stopping again about 3 miles north of Braunston for a walk, it was a very pleasant mooring so we stayed and had a nice evening drinking wine with my daughter in the front cockpit.
It was freezing the next day and rained a bit, we headed up the canal to a turnaround just short of Hillmorton at bridge 74. I like conventional winding holes as you can put the nose in the hole and use a rope to pull the back end round. Off south and back to Braunston to an absolute traffic jam, we edged through the vistor moorings before the junction, why they put them on the bend opposite the water point escapes me, we missed everyone by an inch or two. then around the junction to meet a small convoy of boats going in the opposite direction, so close that they followed each other through the bridge leaving no gaps big enough for us going the other way. After about 4 boats there was slightly longer gap so we charged through it. We moored by the hippies again who had now fixed their rudder.
We decided to walk to Braunston and on the way noticed a bit of a fuss on the opposite bank. In a sort of layby (co-incidentally where I fell in in 1973) just before bridge 95 (going towards Braunston) there are permanent moorings, one boat at the end has fenced off an area of land and lives (I think) in a rather tired fibre glass cruiser. It's about 30ft with a centre cockpit. A girl (I think from the RSPCA) was making enquires about the dogs that lived on the boat. The dogs were going wild fighting each other. The boat itself had no licence or BW number. I wonder how long it will remain? We had lunch in the Mill House, family friendly but not cheap.
After lunch (and with more wine from the shop) we set off back to Calcutt, had an interesting event at 108. we met two boats one right up behind the other, the bridge is on a blind bend and we saw the first boat in time to steer around it but had to stop in a hurry when surprised by the second.
We did the 3 locks at Calcutt by ourselves again and got straight in the marina with no trouble. The mooring though! 3rd go lucky. In hindsight, the first two, backwards in and then forwards in were doomed to failure as we were trying to do this against the wind. The third backwards from the other direction was perfect as the back end arrived at the pontoon and the wind gently swung the front to the right place. More wine a good nights sleep and back home.
The kids seemed very happy on the boat and our daughter loved being on boats again but we decided we needed a fourth adult, two to work the boat and two to watch the kids.
Dad and daughter.
The grandkids
Kids, Sam and a bit of me!
Cheers Graham
