A bit more boating

I finished my narrow boating on the canals back in 2004 when I sold Empress which was my ex FMC Josher steamer, I then proceeded to sell my live-aboard boat 'Ant' as I bought a house to live in instead, so that was the end of my boating on the canals so to speak other than moving boats around Norbury and the odd recovery from somewhere on the Shroppie, I had sought of lost interest, BUT I had the opportunity to go and collect a nice boat from Thurmaston on the river Soar last week, now it has been over 20 years since I had been on the Soar navigation so I thought that I would have a few days moving the boat with my partner Amanda, who incidentally had not been boating on the canals before except around Norbury and to the local pub, So off we set early on Friday morning, dropped a car off at our final destination point then drove over to Thurmaston to collect the boat, we had a lovely run down the Soar, Amanda picked up the 'hang' of operating the locks really quickly and really put her back in to opening the bottom gates, they are big gates on the Soar, we made great time and we arrived at the Trent lock visitor pontoon within 6.5 hours which was a great time, that was about 20 miles and 12 locks, That night saw David come over with some other boating friends that we haven’t seen for ages and a great night was had by all.

 Next day we departed the pontoon after a leisurely breakfast, well we were supposed to be enjoying ourselves, we made good time and arrived at Barton turns marina at about 5.30, it seemed like a long day and I had forgotten how slow you actually travel, the wide locks down on the T&M are slow too, and we encountered a few slow boats en route which also slowed the pace, it was great to see loads of familiar faces along the way, I had forgotten just how many people that I have met over the years of my boating life!

Sunday again saw us having a leisurely start with a cooked breakfast and then only a short cruise up to Fradley and just on to the Coventry canal where we were to leave the boat for a while until Simon our engineer goes to move it up to Norbury.

As I said its been years since I have been boating and it has renewed my interest in boating on the canals, watch this space as I might just be keeping this boat and doing a bit more boating!

Regards

Simon