Up the Thames and back to Uxbridge

8th & 9th May

The fine weather continued yesterday, although I'd found it prudent to put the legs back on my zip off trousers as my knees were still grumbling about their exposure the day before. We had a leisurely start to the day, having been to The Grapes the night before for an excellent fish dinner; at £40 per head it wasn't cheap, but well worth it.

Free entertainment had previously been obtained by watching the antics of some youths on the far side of the basin. The top of that dock wall is provided with decorative wrought iron posts and chains, and they were amusing themselves by bunny hopping to and fro over the swag of chain, risking falling into the dock if they got it wrong.

What happened, perhaps inevitably, was not that, but one lad misjudged his jump and came down with one leg either side of the chain, at a point where it's about three feet off the ground...

He was rolling and writhing for some minutes, whilst his mates fell about.

With us booked to lock out onto the tideway at 2.15, the morning was spent in various preparatory activities – checking the engine, getting the life jackets out, making sure that everything on the roof was secure.

Mid morning, Mike Fisher (skipper of Nuggler) and I went and saw the lock keeper to confirm that we were still heading out. He told us that we were the only pair going, which was mildly surprising given the handy tide timing and the Cavalcade event the weekend before.

By lunchtime, I was in my usual pre tideway state of wondering why on earth I had thought it a good idea to risk my boat and home on the ocean deep (the Thames is very wide at Limehouse). No matter: at 2.15 the lock lights turned green and we motored in, holding ourselves against the sides with ropes around the vertical sliding poles.

Limehouse is by no means the largest lock we've ever been in, but it still feels pretty huge with just the two narrowboats in it. The gates opened and we set off into the river, sounding one long blast on the horn ("I am entering the fairway") as we did so.

As required, I attempted to raise London VTS, the traffic control system for the tidal Thames, on my VHF, but found that it wasn't powerful enough to reach them. Mike has a properly installed VHF on Nuggler, (rather than Sanity's handheld), with an aerial on the roof, but he was barely able to reach them. With the base being down at Woolwich, they could really use some more repeaters if they want small pleasure craft like ourselves to co-operate with the system.

The river was quite choppy at first; Michael had been sitting on the gunwale of the well deck, rather than get a folding seat out, but as Sanity shouldered her way through a big bit of swell from a passing trip boat, the spray rose up and soaked him to the shoulder, and he found it prudent to retreat a little.

Apart from the swell, conditions were near ideal, with pleasant sun, a bit of breeze occasionally gusting up, and some traffic, but nothing to cause major problems.

By quarter to five we were entering Brentford Creek. The lockie was looking out for us, and had the gates open at both ends of the lock, so that the creek was tidal up to the gauging locks. This gave us an anxious moment under the bridge just below, but we squeaked through, with Michael holding down the radio aerial to save it from being bent hard over.

We found a mooring space on the visitor moorings above the gauging locks, and were joined for dinner by Mike. A convivial evening ensued.

Despite that, we made a good start this morning, getting away at eight, with a good bit of boating to do to get to Uxbridge for tonight. Hanwell flight is a challenge, but with four of us and two boats we made good progress. We were following Orient Express, who was single handing, so Michael spent a fair bit of his time riding ahead on the bike and giving its steerer a hand.

Twelve locks later we reached Bulls Bridge and Tesco. Mike went on in Nuggler, taking her back to her home mooring at Harefield Marina. We shopped, watered, ran a washload and had lunch at Bulls Bridge. The moorings were quite empty today, unlike our previous visit. The patrol craft Verulam was hanging about, which may have had something to do with it.

Chugging on, we had a DIY pump out on the card operated machine at the Packet Boat Marina at Cowley Peachey Junction. This proved to be very good – a powerful machine which got our tank well clean.

Final move of the day was up Cowley Lock to find a mooring at Uxbridge by half four. These moorings are quite cluttered, but we squeezed into a space. Tomorrow, Michael leaves us to visit his cousin Graeme near Lincoln – Elanor is going over there tomorrow as well, so they can have a good generational get together before Michael heads back to Germany.

Ideally, he'd like to spend more time in the UK; that would mean getting a job, of course, so if anyone wants to employ a hard working, computer literate, bilingual guy of eighteen, turn his hand to anything, can steer a narrowboat and work locks, do let me know!