At least it was warm rain!

We started out this morning hoping to get through Baddiley Locks but not everything went to plan. We were behind a fibreglass cruiser at the bottom of Hurleston. I asked them how wide they were and they had been told they were 6ft 10ins. ah should have been OK because that is the maximum width for Hurleston. Well, someone told them wrong because they couldn't get into the lock so they had to reverse back and cancel their plans to visit the Llangollen.

As we entered the lock there was a bit of a clatter from our prop and Ray knew he had got something stuck on it. We were able to get up through the lock but then had to moor in the pound between the locks for Ray to clear it. It transpired that it was one of those rubber pipe style fenders, someone obviously didn't take notice of the 'Please lift your fenders' sign, and no, it wasn't one of ours!

There was a lock keeper and a volunteer on the flight so once we were able to carry on we quickly got up to the top.  However I was thoroughly drenched by he time we reached the top as the heavens had opened and deposited huge amounts of wet stuff on my head. Pausing only to dump the rubbish and top up the water tank we carried on, thankfully the rain had stopped.

Without any problems we carried on through the two Swanley locks but as we exited the second I saw a flash of lightning. The sky was getting a bit black so we decided to moor at the first sensible spot. As we found a spot it started to rain and by the time we had moored Morgana and Merlin we were both soaked through, again!

Today's journey 4.2 miles and 6 locks

So far this year we have travelled 541.4 miles, 436 locks, 49 swing bridges, 7 lift bridges and 18 tunnels


In 2011 we travelled 461.4 miles, 444 locks, 3 swing bridges, 34 lift bridges and 15 tunnels


During 2010 we travelled 740.3 miles, 642 locks, 53 swing bridges, 4 lift bridges and 25 tunnels


Since Ray retired we have travelled 1743.1 miles 1522 locks, 105 swing bridges, 45 lift bridges and 58 tunnels