End of the summer's cruise

6th & 7th September

It continued very wet indeed over Friday night and into Saturday morning. Not being in any great rush, we waited until it eased a bit and then went round to the water point by the Hovis Mill and the Macclesfield Canal Centre. Two boats from Nantwich were occupying the 24 hour moorings, so we went straight onto the water point and started filling up. On the way we noted and took photos of the land slip that has closed the towpath at Bridge 41. It's quite spectacular; no wonder it's going to take a full winter's stoppage to repair.

The folks on the Nantwich boats emerged whilst we were hanging around, and after chatting to us, began to make preparations to go. This was handy, as I had a longish list of stuff I wanted to get from Tesco, and wouldn't have felt happy leaving Sanity on the water point whilst we did so.

In the event, after they'd gone, an Anglo Welsh boat rolled up, also looking for water, and tied behind us, but since the length immediately behind that is in fact much better, we weren't too worried. Sheila explained to them that if they tied sufficiently far forward on their mooring, they should be able to water without pulling forward, but the miserably short hose they had wasn't up to the job.

I usually reckon around twenty metres is a good length for a hose, so that if necessary you can run it past one 60 foot boat and still reach your own, or have the tap at the stern of the boat and still reach the filler point in the bow. The Anglo Welsh issue was barely 20 foot rather than 20 metres.

Once our tank was full, Sheila gave one of her demos of virtuoso boat handling and pulled back round them to the deeper mooring behind. Off we trotted in full wet weather gear for the walk to Tesco. The sun promptly came out, so that by the time we'd got back with our loads of shopping, condensation had made us as damp as we'd probably have got if we'd just braved the rain without waterproofs.

Back on the boat, we cast off and Sheila started boating whilst I put stuff away and made coffee. It was now gone eleven, and so we didn't expect to get to Adlington much before one. I made mugs of soup to keep us going after we'd passed Bollington, and we got to Adlington at around ten past one.

The 24 hour moorings opposite Lyme View Marina looked pretty full, so we stopped on the 48 hour ones just this side of Bridge 18. They proved pretty bumpy, though. There's a ledge just below water level worthy of the Shroppie. My usual trick for dealing with this is to fix the fender to a mooring chain clipped to the fender eye, so that it sinks down and lies between the hull's bottom edge and the ledge. This time, however, it didn't work.

This was because the nice new fenders I'd made with Victory Black floated. They didn't mention this in Tradline when I bought the stuff from them – I may have to incorporate some sort of weight in at least two fenders so as to be able to moor on the Shroppie in comfort.

Be all this as it may, after lunch a reconnaissance showed that there was in fact one sixty foot space left through the bridge, and we moved through onto it, lying much more comfortably as a result.

The rest of the afternoon was spent browsing the internet and the like. Main discovery as a result was the newly issued BW proposals for next year's licence conditions. The plan is to charge continuous cruisers an extra £150 a year, on the grounds that a) we use the system far more than others and b) we can afford it.

Needless to say we are not impressed, and I suspect there'll be some tough talking between the various user groups before the year is much older.

Later in the day, as I was cooking dinner, Iain and Luisa Bryceland came past on Braidbar 100, heading off for a short cruise for the weekend. Since they'd only just set off, they declined our offer to share the stew in the oven, but still managed to swap a good bit of gossip with us before going on.

Today was another damp start, and with only the short run to Poynton in prospect, we didn't hurry out of bed. In fact, we reckoned that arriving before half ten would be pointless, so I did some more emailing and the like, as well as routine engine and prop checks, before we went.

On arrival at Poynton, we found lots of boats tied on the deeps, and have ended up some distance from the yard. This didn't stop us finding an excuse to call in after lunch, where we found Peter and Sue Mason hard at work. It gave them a chance to stop and discuss what we want done to Sanity, following up our email exchanges, and we'll be going into the yard tomorrow morning.

The rest of the afternoon has drifted gently by; I've finished the picture part of the quiz I've promised for the Owner's weekend meeting on the 20th and 21st, and caught up with some other jobs, like giving Sheila's hair a trim. Note there's an Open Day at the yard on the Saturday, the 20th, for anyone interested in perhaps one day owning a Braidbar boat; see their website.