Tuesday 7th August 2007
We awoke to another bright and sunny day. The flow of the river seemed to have dropped a little over night though the current was still quite strong. Whilst I sat and had a lazy breakfast Rob walked upstream to have a look at his navigation conditions to take us on to the Oxford Canal.
On his return he met Steve from Oxford Cruisers who had moored his tug in front of us. He was on a rescue mission to salvage the sunken narrow boat at Folly Bridge. (Gypsy Rover has some good photos of the lifting of the boat) We chatted to him for a while as we were moored with him a couple of years ago when we were fitting out The Green Man. He confirmed Rob’s opinion that the stream was navigational this morning - as a Tupperware flew passed us downstream and bounced off the weir guard. (much to Steve’s amusement)
Cowardly as I am, I took to the bike and cycled the tow path down to Isis Lock on the canal whilst Rob carefully steered the boat passed the other vessels moored just above us. He took it slow so as not to create too much wash. He opened up the engine once passed and made it easily under Botley Bridge and onto the canal. He even got a mention on Gypsy Rover’s web log but I think they thought him a fool for attempting to move the boat.
We awoke to another bright and sunny day. The flow of the river seemed to have dropped a little over night though the current was still quite strong. Whilst I sat and had a lazy breakfast Rob walked upstream to have a look at his navigation conditions to take us on to the Oxford Canal.
On his return he met Steve from Oxford Cruisers who had moored his tug in front of us. He was on a rescue mission to salvage the sunken narrow boat at Folly Bridge. (Gypsy Rover has some good photos of the lifting of the boat) We chatted to him for a while as we were moored with him a couple of years ago when we were fitting out The Green Man. He confirmed Rob’s opinion that the stream was navigational this morning - as a Tupperware flew passed us downstream and bounced off the weir guard. (much to Steve’s amusement)
Cowardly as I am, I took to the bike and cycled the tow path down to Isis Lock on the canal whilst Rob carefully steered the boat passed the other vessels moored just above us. He took it slow so as not to create too much wash. He opened up the engine once passed and made it easily under Botley Bridge and onto the canal. He even got a mention on Gypsy Rover’s web log but I think they thought him a fool for attempting to move the boat.
Passed Botley Bridge.
Once on the canal the water was as calm as a mill pond and we could finally have a stress free journey to Cropredy. Well, stress free whilst Rob was at the tiller. I have a ditzy habit of getting my left and right muddled up and after a near miss with a narrow boat aptly named Patience we decided that I should just stick to my job of navigating into and out of locks.
Rob doing all the hard work.
Twelve locks later we came to rest for the evening just beyond bridge 198 Deep Cutting and settled down to a late supper under a blood red moon.
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