Running out of time and water!

 

July has been a bit of a battle. Having made the decision to head back up to the Macclesfield Canal, we had 21 days to tackle 189 miles and 132 locks. There were also planned stoppages and time restrictions on some of those locks, so we had to “get a wiggle on!”. But we did have some fun along the way too.

Even at full speed (3mph) there’s always time to enjoy the surroundings and watch the water,  occasionally seeing long, streams of large clear bubbles rising up from the bottom of the canal. So we pondered this phenomena, we each proposed a theory of it’s origin.

H: (Boring sciencey idea) There are oxygenating plants with long tendrils growing on the canal bed, the bubbles of oxygen produced are trapped by the fronds of the plant, as the boat passes by, it disturbs the plants and the bubbles are released, rising to the surface.

I: (Bonkers idea) There are shoals of fearful farting fish (Please don’t choke on your coffee). The fish are swimming gently in the water and are scared by the passing boat and fart (jet propulsion?)

So do fish fart?-According to Do Fish Fart? (And More Must-Know Fish Facts) – Scuba.com, herring and sand sharks do. There have also been sightings of air escaping from the nether region of a fish after they’ve gulped air at the surface, but this isn’t really a product of digestion, so can’t it be termed as a fart and may have more to do with their swim bladders (now you’re just taking the p***)

One day, the boat decided to go for a little ride on its own.  We’d pulled in at the bottom of a lock. Ian jumped off to go and sort the lock out and Heather hopped off, assuming that Ian had taken the midline (long rope tied to the middle of the roof and used as a quick temporary mooring rope) with him and was tying it to a bollard to secure the boat. As often happens with Heather, she was distracted by a nice long branch hiding in the hedgerow, that would be a great addition to our store of firewood. On turning around with the branch in hand, Heather discovered that Ian had already disappeared up to the lock and the boat was now halfway across the canal with a rather bemused Sammy dog staring from the stern. Dog’s aren’t the best at steering boats or throwing ropes. Luckily, that lovely branch happened to have a nice little hook on the end of it; so as the boat slowly drifted across the canal and the bow twisted lazily towards us, we hooked up the bow line and pulled the boat back. Amazingly nobody had to get wet (makes a change – says Heather!!!), the dog hadn’t panicked, and the boat didn’t come to any grief. Lesson learnt – never assume!

Whilst we did our best not to flag in the heatwave, the same cannot be said for the canalside trees. With their roots weakened by the dry soil, it became a daily occurrence to discover a tree toppled across the canal leaving it “passible with care” or evidence of where a bigger tree had recently been cleared. On passing one of these, we were told by a local that it had only been cleared the previous night with a crew turning up at 5pm and working solidly for 5 hours. There’s going to be plenty of firewood this winter.

Almost at the same lock that we’d met them on our way down to London, we pulled in alongside the fuel boat, “Bordesley” Jules Fuels Southern, which was looking particularly gorgeous having just won first prize at the Braunston Historic Boat show.

Another obstacle was discovering the pounds (short stretches of canal between locks) being empty. This happened on several of the flights of locks and despite Ian’s best efforts to refill these sections, the boat still got stuck and we just had to wait until we were floating again. We actually think that our boat has a draft of about two foot, so that kind of shows how low these water levels have got. The worst flight by far was the eleven locks at Atherstone which took us twice as long to get through. Mainly because the bywash at the top lock was out of use and feeder from the reservoir was stopped, so there was no extra water to maintain the levels.

We shared a few locks with a young couple whose boat was positively festooned with raspberries and loganberries overhanging the sides. It was so tempting to reach across and nab one but having complimented them on the display, they gave us a tub of fruit. As exchange is no robbery, I returned the favour with a slice of my rich fruit cake and some Cheshire cheese to nibble with it (originally it would have been Wensleydale as it’s one of Ian’s family’s Yorkshire’isms)

We even shared a lock with the current owner of a boat we’d previously seen in a bit of a state on the Leeds & Liverpool. In July 2023 it was a brand new boat that had sunk in a lock and been refloated. It was lovely to see it on the move again, but sadly, this owner had no idea that it had previously been an insurance write off. He had found watermarks and damp smells inside the boat, which had made him wonder as to the cause, but he knew nothing of the unfortunate event and it seems that there is no legal obligation to inform a purchaser of any previous incidents, which I find quite concerning.

You tend to be extra careful in locks when you see and hear about such situations. I don’t know what it is about this trip, but we saw  least one wreck near every town we passed through.

We did have to keep moving at quite a pace and we thought our mission to get on to the Macclesfield Canal was going to fail when we heard that Aston Lock (near Stone in Staffordshire), which already had a planned stoppage on it in a few days time, had been closed early due to low water levels. Well we honestly felt like that was it. But then, thankfully, the levels recovered enough and the lock reopened and the boat got through …just! But not so lucky at the Meaford flight, when Ian was actually solo boating for a few days and got stuck.

As I type this, we have had a few rain showers but unfortunately it’s not enough and a lot of the northern end of the canal system has got planned closures within a few weeks. It does mean that they will lift some mooring restrictions, so at least we won’t have to keep trying to move around. Just to be on the safe side, we have asked for a mooring overstay, as we need to stay put for at least a few weeks while Heather recovers from yet another surgery – yep, she’s finally getting that right knee replaced.

We still have plenty of plans for this year both with the boat (water levels permitting), the van and a very, very big ship!