Stratford-on-Avon

The weather forecast for the next few days is not nice, today is better than most but tomorrow gusts up to 45 mph are forecast, not a day to be cruising!

Based on the above we decided to do the run into Stratford today, lots more locks and not a lot of miles. The wind was making life difficult, the lock gates either blew shut and were impossible to open or blew open and were impossible to close. Twice an oncoming boat 'stole'our lock, the wind caught Morgana at a bridgehole, taking her off course, causing Merlin to swing and hit the bridge breaking one of the towing straps. When we reached the last lock before the basin, I had walked back to close the gate at the previous lock behind Morgana only to hear Ray shout, someone was about to raise the bottom paddle to empty the lock we were about to enter, the wind had closed the gate. What made it worse was the fact that the top paddles were still open so she was in danger of draining the pound! They had brought their boat under the bridge below the lock without checking that they could enter the lock. This meant they had to reverse back out from the bridge so we could go through the lock. All good fun!

When at last we entered the basin, struggling to manoeuvre because of the wind, there was suddenly smoke and an electrical burning smell!! In the short time it took for me to grab the tiller as Ray rushed to find the problem the wind took us and we were blown alongside another boat. The electrical fault was only a switch that had shorted but it was very scary! We then had great fun trying to reach the pontoons to moor, a case of 'if I was going there I wouldn't start from here', but with the aid of a couple of other boaters we eventually got moored.

We are definitely staying here tomorrow!

Today's journey 6.9 miles and 17 locks

So far this year we have travelled 339.5 miles, 279 locks, 34 lift bridges and 12 tunnels

Since Ray retired we have travelled 1075.2 miles, 926 locks, 55 swing bridges, 38 lift bridges and 37 tunnels