Things went reasonably to plan today; we got away at 7.45 on a very pleasant Spring morning. The river had come up a couple of inches overnight, but was still well in the green sector of the indicator board. With the throttle well open, about at the position that would produce 4 mph on still water, the Garmin said that we were doing 5.6 mph over the ground, so the flow must have been around 2 mph, much the same as you get on the Llangollen Canal.
There was certainly no problem breaking out of the current at the end; Sanity Again turned back into the canal without hesitation.
Most of the locks were against us, and we saw no traffic until we reached Branston, with one notable exception. This was Halfie on Jubilee, who came round the bend at the Oakamoor Cafe as we approached it. We had a brief shouted exchange but no time for a chat.
After Branston, we followed Voyager and a Canaltime. Voyager moors on Xanthus pontoon in this marina, but she managed to keep well ahead of us after Dallow Lane.
The weather turned showery after Burton, and I handed over the helm to get an early lunch at half eleven. Sheila had time to get hers before we arrived at Willington, where I managed to make the turn into the marina cut in one move for the first time.
We had a bit of fun actually entering the marina from the connecting cut, as there was a wide beam waiting to come out, round which we do-see-dohed a bit. It meant backing onto the pump out quay went less smoothly than usual, but we made it and had a good pump out.
Then it was round the now familiar route to our mooring; our neighbour of the winter has gone, so getting onto the pontoon was quite easy. We had a chance to catch up on all the goss with Lloyd and Helen off Alice, and with Barry from Adagio. The shoreline is connected (it's an honest marina, this, the fiver we'd left on the meter two months ago was still there) and we're starting to relax into marina living mode for a few days.
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