Up and down for water

We woke up to a very misty warm morning and the Thames looked stunning.

It soon turned into blue skies and we pulled the pins and set off.

Its lovely cruising in these conditions as the water is like glass and the suns in your face..

Al took the helm and took us up to the lock..
It was self service and we had a boat behind us who kindly helped us through and closed the gates for us..

We carried on the next three miles to Mapledurham lock as we knew there was a water point there which isn't marked in the Nicholson guide book.
When we arrived, the water point was still there, but the end had been removed so you could only fill containers with it.. not very helpful and we didn't see the meaning in this..
It was a fast tap so Del rigged up the hose using a jubilee clip to hold it on and it did the job.
We then chatted to the lockkeeper while we filled and was shocked to hear that the Thames was probably going to be on a restriction during the summer months due to lack of water.
They must know its going to be a dry one, as they are saying the locks will be open, but only every hour, worrying for the rest of the system.
We then retraced our steps back to Pangbourne as we knew the weather was going to be bad tomorrow and we wanted to be off pins and using posts, sounds like we need it badly..

 There were loads of spots to moor here and we put Derwent6 into storm mode with all the things taken off the roof..

It turned out to be a lovely afternoon and we got the batteries topped up with solar to 100% ready for a poor day tomorrow.