Near the end or beginning

We're getting near the end of the Ashby, or rather its beginning. This morning's boating was a leisurely potter to Bridge 5, where we tied before half ten with the intention of staying for the night. However, the visitor moorings, official though they are, had a few problems, of which the most obvious was the fact that the hard edge with rings allowed for no alternative means of tying. There was no way of using a chain or piling hook, and I wouldn't have wanted to try driving a pin into the hard surfaced towpath.

The rings were just under 70 feet apart, leaving us moored square with no way of fixing springs. Despite deploying the go-kart tyre fenders, we surged about if another boat passed at anything over tickover, which several did whilst we ate lunch and pondered the problem.

In addition, the bridge carried a busy road and reviewing the map showed that though the situation felt rural, there was a housing estate just above the canal.

So we decided to move on a little further to another spot which I'd marked on the way up. The Garmin GPS is excellent for this; over the years I've marked many such moorings, winding holes and water points on it as waypoints.

We've come on to a genuinely rural setting, just before Bridge 3. There's more Armco the far side of the bridge, too. The West Coast Mainline is just behind us, providing a trainspotter's paradise, but the noise is not too intrusive and anyway will be less over night.

It's not like the trains are running at 250 mph :(

We did another good deed this morning, or rather Sheila did, in remooring another boat adrift. It had been left held by just two light pins; Sheila hopped off Sanity Again onto a ragged bit of towpath and I passed her the short shaft and lump hammer with which she hauled the stray back against the towpath and drove the pin back in as best she could.

Folks, if you must leave a boat tied to pins driven into soggy towpath, it's no good relying on just a couple of the feeble things they sell in chandleries. Either get some heftier beasts such as marquee pegs or tank recovery pins or else use several pins, driving them crossed against each other to absorb the stresses from different directions.

Learning how to set springs running back towards the boat is good too.

Tomorrow, we brave the big bad world of Nuneaton once more, stopping at Boot Wharf to pump out and diesel on the way.