Frosty Derwent6

Early start for us today, as we wanted to get up as far as we could making use of the good weather. Believe us it was bloody cold when we got out of bed this morning and you could see your breath on your way to the bathroom. Thank god for the 13.5 tog duvet. We set off with ice on the roof and the cloud carpet on the canal, it was beautiful. You can see here how frozen the rope was.....
We got to the second lock and Al put the windlass on the lock gate and it slid down the gate on the ice and Bang! onto the roof of Derwent6 (as it was going in the lock...) and then Plop! into the canal. We spent another half hour trying to fish out the windlass with the sea searcher and we did manage to retrieve it. Derwent6 suffered chips on the roof and gunwale and a scratch down the side, but they were soon touched in lol.

We then had some problems with the prop as we had lost drive, but on taking up the hatch found nothing. It appears it was a shallow canal with leaves wrapping their way round the prop and when stationary they just fell off. On lifting the weed hatch we did find that the bilge was full of water. Our bilge has got cobwebs in it because it is so dry so we stopped and filled with water while we soaked up the water. We never did find out where it has come from!

Del met up with a fat bird on the way Check out the four geese going up to the lock, lets hope they open the lock gates for us..... We made our way through Hemel Hempstead which was shallow all the way and we were nearly at idle for about four miles. We had now lost so much time, (but we weren't too bothered,) that we just about made Birkhamstead before dark. On stepping off the boat and mooring up Del trod in some Dog S**t (thanks for that) a good finish to the day. Well with eight miles and seventeen locks today we won't be doing much tonight.......

Al did get out her Advent candle and lit it....Only 24 days to go....