Friday 2 April 2010

Why can't rivers be straight?

This morning all went to plan, we got the Morgana turned to face the right way and off we went. It was still very windy but not as bad as it has been. The main problem was that every twist of the river brought the wind at a different angle of course. We had just got used to correcting the steering to account for the wind and then we had to adjust it all again. Our journey continued without major incident, I was using the lock ladder to reboard whilst still in the locks, no problem.

As we approach Irthlingborough, our intended destination we could see the two bridges we had to negotiate to reach the moorings. The first one, the A6 bridge, nice and high, straight through. The second one is a beautiful 14th century arched bridge, the height boards were reading 2.4 metres, we are less than 2 metres above the waterline, no problem, through the bridge easily. Problem - there is a very sharp left turn after the bridge followed by a sharp right. Ray managed to get the boat turned but, you guessed it, the wind just carried us on sideways to the reeds. Luckily there is still plenty of depth and we were able to creep along the reeds until we were able to make the right turn. There was loads of space to moor by Rushden and Diamonds Football Club so we stopped.

The next moorings are about half a day's cruise and as the weather forecast for the afternoon was for stronger winds and rain we decided to stay here. We will probably head for Islip tomorrow, which will leave us about 22 miles, or half an hour by road from Peterborough. Unfortunately, by boat it is 34 miles and 22 locks which is about 18 hours!! I don't think we could manage that on Saturday, even if it was glorious weather and midsummer!

Today's journey 3 miles and and 2 locks.
So far we have travelled 76.1 miles, 99 locks, 3 swing bridges, 1 lift bridge and 1 tunnel.

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