Wednesday 14 September 2011

On the move

We are once again on the move, yet again our plan is to get to Lincoln. We set off yesterday from Nottingham bathed in Sunshine, we had to cruise for 20 mins in the wrong direction to wind, but heh, that's becoming normal for us.
Once winded we made good time downwind and arrived at the junction of the Beeston Canal and the River Trent were we took advantage of the services, which we very much needed as the water ran out(for the 1st time in nearly 4 years) on the way down.
I took a look over the lock onto the river, I wanted to see the condition of the water. It looked OK.
Once watered and fed , it took an hour, we ventured out onto the Trent. The wind by now had really started to freshen and waves were now forming and breaking causing White Horses, normally only seen on the high seas. It was an interesting couple of hours, Jill got back into the swing using her old VHF radio skills, she is much better at it than I am, she has a wonderful radio manner and has a good rapport with the lockies.

The wind carried on strengthening all afternoon, so much so, that I was pushing along at 5.9 mph at 1000 rpm, normally 2.5 mph on the cut. At one point whilst traversing a long right hand bend a gust of wind threw 'MR' over to stbd in such an alarming manner that I had visions of the Lorry that had been blown over onto it's side, as seen on the News the previous evening. It doesn't bare thinking about, what would have been the outcome, if that had happened to us.
Thankfully,  there was space on the pontoon at Gunthorpe, enough of the White Knuckle Ride.
Our view this morning,  No White Horses yet!

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