We don't move in the Rain

 Oh yes we do! as you will see from this blog..  

We set off very early, in fact it was 6.15am (just as the light was good enough). Yep there was a very light drizzle but we wanted to turn around..

Our reason for moving was that we had been static for two weeks and if you remember we had topped up with everything at Sutton Cheney. Well we had now runout of everything again. Our water was straining the water pump at the taps as it was dying of thirst, and Del was dying of thirst as we had run out of beers..  So the plan was to do the same again..

 The drizzle soon eased off and it became very clear that the water levels had dropped significantly, even though we had had quite a bit of rain over the last day or so.. Derwent6 was just off idle for most of the way because being low on water means the bow is light and that makes the stern dig into the water deeper. When throttle is added it drops even lower into the water like you see on a speed boat..  It took us an hour to get to the winding hole at Shackerstone and Derwent6 turned with ease here..

The levels were patchy as it was ok one minute and then you suddenly slowed to a stop at the shallow sections.. If you meet another boat, and you are not both on idle, the water is taken away and you lean over as demonstrated in this picture.

We then got our first moan of the day at Market Bosworth, as we got shouted at passing a moored boat, not for going too fast, but for going too close to them.. "Close enough" came a shout from the hatch, and Del kindly said "sorry, there wasn't the room to leave a good gap" They had moored opposite a bush and they expected boats to go into the bush to get past them..

The problem was that is was shallow under that bush where boats hadn't gone there

 Anyway we got through unscathed and continued to poodle back into the countryside.

Our next problem was at the battlefield moorings where a boat was across the canal. Al popped up to see what was going on and Del moored up..

We ended up, with the help of another boater, pulling it back and re pinning it securely before we could get on our way..  We reached Sutton Cheney at about 11.00am and just as we arrived a guy was leaving on the 24 hour mooring, perfect, so we slipped in there.

We then found out our hose reached the water tap from here, great.. This gave us enough time to then grab a bacon sarnie and a coffee while we waited for out shopping from Asda to arrive..

Mr Asda arrived bang on time and this gave us a head start on the return journey. It was lovely when we left and the acorns were hanging low on the trees and the cows were enjoying themselves.

Then the heavens opened and Del was now holding a brolly..

You would have thought the water levels would have come up a bit but as you can see passing boats was still difficult, and in the rain a challenge.

There was a few claps of thunder and flashes around us but it was head down and brolly even lower, good job Del was standing on a rubber mat..

It was then that gap again, and yep we were close again, but no shouting this time so they must have been thoroughly fed up of everyone going close..

Our mooring we were on had been taken, (and lets face it we had been there two weeks) so a new one was found a bit further up..

 CaRT have given out restrictions on the Ashby now because it is so shallow, but it is passable with care and a bit of patience. We sorted ourselves out and then put the kettle on, knackered!