Still a way to go

The thaw continues, and we've had a very fine day today, but it will be a while before things are back to normal. We could probably move Sanity Again out of the marina and up and down the canal a little way, but there's still a lot of ice in front of the service wharf. This may get broken up tomorrow, if the guys working on the share boats decide to relaunch Huxley and extract the next candidate for blacking.

I took a walk to Tixall Wide this afternoon, and found that the state of the cut is very varied. The Wide itself is almost ice free, but there are still thick sheets blocking both exits, especially the westerly one towards Tixall Lock.

Debdale is still sat on her mooring there, safe and sound, but it will be a few days before she can be moved very far, I would guess. The forecast is for the thaw to continue, with rain tomorrow night and overnight on Tuesday, so that may well move things along.

Meanwhile, Sheila has started doing some research with our own blacking in mind. We want to get Sanity Again blacked this year; it's a good idea to do that first blacking quite soon in the boat's life, as the mill scale separating from the hull takes a lot of the original blacking off with it. Norbury Wharf is offering what looks like a good deal, charging £10.50 per foot for three coats of Comastic (always more expensive than the thinner stuff) after a steam clean. They also claim to be liveaboard friendly, and we've had good reports of them from fellow bloggers.