Cruising with the boss

Gosh what a good day, it’s hard to know where to start, apart from enthusiastic remarks about the rump steak we had last night…

/wahaha

Richard had texted me last evening to check out arrival times; I replied that we could be ready anytime from nine onwards, so he chose to aim for 9.30. A bit after nine I wandered across to the shop to get you know what and hung about there chatting to various friends passing by.

Richard was pretty well on time by boating standards and we were soon showing him through Sanity Again. Everyone who’s met him has commented on what a nice guy he is, and we would certainly concur.

By ten we were ready to pull out and set off for Branston or even further. The exit from the marina went better than usual and for the next four hours we chugged steadily westwards.

Richard was very willing to take his turn at the helm and showed great steering skill, especially as he’s had comparatively limited experience of handling a long boat. We had lunch on the move after passing Dallow Lane Lock; Branston was soon on the horizon but on such a pleasant day it was easy to agree to go on a bit further to Barton Turn.

There was space on the mooring below the lock, where we’ve stopped for the night. It wouldn’t be a day out on the cut without a chance to consume some beer so we adjourned to the Barton Turns Inn for the purpose. It being nice enough to sit out we occupied one of the lockside tables where we were very shortly joined by Elanor and Sally, the latter in one of her scattier moods.

After a bit Richard left us to walk on to a rendezvous further up the cut and Elanor and Sal came back to the boat for family goss.

All in all a very pleasant day indeed; Richard comes across as getting to grips with the challenges of running CRT very well; he took great interest in the state of the cut, both in terms of offside veg growth and underwater problems. I look forward to watching his progress. Just to show that I’m not making all this up, here’s a photo of him observing me steering Sanity Again:

Tomorrow, we’ll carry on to the winding hole below Wychnor then retrace our track to Mercia.