Slowly down Bosley

The cunning plan today was to make an earlyish start, work down Bosley and come on to Congleton Aqueduct, and indeed this is what we have done, though not as quickly as anticipated. All went well at first; we got away at twenty to eight, and were at Bosley Top just an hour later, having passed Martin on Ice Breaker just before getting there.

As we approached the top lock, Sheila went forward along the towpath to set it and encountered the steerer of the boat which had just started down. He indicated that they'd had problems with the level of the pound between locks two and three, and had been running water down.

Eventually, they headed out, and Sheila turned the lock for us. By now, Martin had arrived. All went well until we got to the second lock, where the boat ahead was still waiting. Apparently, the situation between four and five was even worse. We ended up with Sanity Again in lock two, the boat in front in three and a boat coming up waiting in five.

BW had been phoned but were likely to be thirty to forty minutes before arriving. Sheila went on down with the camera, and there was indeed no way anything could move between four and five:

Looking from Lock Five back to Four

After a long wait, a BW guy in a red lifejacket arrived and said he would start running water down. He must have set things up very gently, because the level in the pound between the top and lock two only rose very, very gradually. A little while later, another, older BW guy turned up. (He was wearing a blue life jacket rather than the first guy's red one; does this imply seniority?)

He told us to carry on working down, so as to bring more water down with us to the stricken pound. At last, we had the boat in front in lock four, Sanity Again tied in the pound between three and four, and Ice Breaker waiting in three.

Now the low pound looked much better, and the guy in five was persuaded to start working up. Things then went fairly well. The older BW man came and examined the paddles of four as we were working down it, and diagnosed a gate paddle that had come out of its guides, so that it would have been leaking all night.

We encountered another really low pound between eight and nine, but otherwise had an uneventful trip down once things were moving again. Just after twelve we were tied on the visitor moorings below the bottom lock, having taken three hours and twenty four minutes to do a flight that normally needs two hours.

After lunch, we came on to Congleton anyway, passing on the way a boat we'd last seen above Bollington, with the most remarkable roof gear I've yet seen on a narrowboat:

I don't know how long it takes him to get going in the morning, but it can't be quick. Ironically, despite all the solar panels and the boat's name, Green King, that's one of those whiny Honda gennies you can just see at the bottom left.

Tomorrow, we've decided to press on through Harecastle to Westport Lake, since the forecast is pretty good.