Wednesday 15 July 2015

Strange change in depth

It's presumably about the dredging, or lack of it, but the problem of the bottom being too near the top got worse and worse for a bit today, then improved dramatically shortly after we'd gone up Debdale. Before then I'd managed to run Sanity Again aground twice, once by letting her get too close to the towpath and finding a load of stone down there and the second time making a complete horlicks of the bend below Debdale.

I stemmed her up good and proper just below the cliff overhang at the point of the bend, unsuccessfully tried to back off and in the end had to get Sheila to shaft off from the bow. By contrast, Austcliffe bend gave very little trouble, though we had an interesting encounter with Bearwood Boster as we emerged. They proved to be blog readers – I couldn't stop to chat under the circs, but it was still good to meet you!

I say the depth business is strange because you expect the lower reaches to be deeper than the upper, being the beneficiaries of all the water brought down through the locks. No matter, I'm not complaining. It took a smidgen under three hours for the run from Wolverley to Kinver. On the guide it looks like it should be quicker, but the deep locks take time and the twisty nature of the cut slows you down quite a bit, even with Sheila doing forward look-out from the well deck.

There was plenty of room to moor when we got here just before half ten. I took a walk up to the service block and found that the pump out looks OK. There are a lot of moored boats here, of course, quite a few of them residential, I suspect, so any problems with the pump out should get reported promptly. We'll use it tomorrow, though nearly £16 for six minutes is a right rip off, CRT.

After coffee we took a walk up into the village and visited the haberdashers (cord for my new pyjama shorts), the baker (loaf), the butcher (sausages, pork pie, smoked streaky bacon, eggs), the greengrocer's (veg) and the Co-op (spread). We lugged this lot back to the boat and had lunch. Since then, the sun has come out, it's warmed up and we've been loafing on the bow with intent.

It's new Kindle book day, being the fifteenth of the month, so I've bought the third in the Aberystwyth Noir series by Malcolm Pryce, The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth. It features a barrel organ grinder client with a capuchin monkey that uses sign language (having once been employed in the linguistics department of a university), sinister nuns and the usual cast of hoods, heavies, bent coppers and Sospan the Ice Cream vendor, always good for what the word is on the street.

That's right, it's a bit weird, and don't even mention the war in Patagonia...



2 comments:

Sue said...

"cord for my new pyjama shorts" FAR too much information Bruce!

Bruce in Sanity said...

WOOF, WOOF!



;)

Bruce