Monday started with filling up with water – that is something you don’t want to run out of, especially as we have a 4ft bath on board and want to make the most of it. There’s plenty of hot water from the engine running. On top of that we have diesel central heating and a wood/coal stove. All of which will be needed if we have the cold winter predicted. Apparently you can predict that from the large acorns that are prolific this year! The last time the canal iced up was 2010. All you can do is moor up and make sure you have plenty of fuel and food on board (or you can go home which might be a better option!).
Then a tricky reversal manoeuvre by Richard to get the boat into a boat yard to fill up with diesel. Our tank is 300L and we use about 1.5L every hour the engine’s running. There are diesel boats on the canal that will fill you up if you pass them so its quite a good idea to get in the habit of stopping them so you know your tank is full. Half empty tanks gather condensation. Water and diesel are not happy bedmates so you want to avoid that if you can.
The downside of picking the boat up from Braunston is that before you have time to blink an eye you are confronted with a flight of 6 locks followed by a tunnel of almost a mile long, which means you are in the dark and wet for 40 minutes! The locks themselves on the Grand Union Canal (GUC) are all double which means either two boats can use them at the same time or one wide berth boat can fit in. The downside of this is that you have to negotiate wide berth boats on the canals themselves and as a narrowboat, you feel a bit vulnerable when confronted with one coming round a sharp corner! Going too close to the right edge and you may get stuck in mud or grind the bottom of the boat on stones. Back to the locks – sorry, I got sidetracked. They themselves can look imposing and rather dark. The huge dark gates block your path and then as they open you enter a chamber that is deep and dank (if you are going up). Water rushes in when the paddles are opened on the gates to the front of the boat and you joggle around unless you have another boat alongside or you have tied the midrope to a bollard on the sidewalk. The joy of the boat rising up to a level where you can see what is beyond makes the effort of the lock worthwhile. And it is an effort. Arriving at a lock to ascend, you want the water to be the same level as the canal you are travelling along. You can then open the gates (sometimes they have been left open which saves some effort) and enter in. However if the lock is full of water you need to empty it by openning the paddles on the lower gates using a windlass. Its polite (and more environmental) to see if a boat is coming along that wants to descend. If this is the case you should let them into the full lock and await your turn to rise up. Once in the lock you have to shut the gates behind the boat and go to the ones at the front to open the paddles. It involves a lot of too and froing and when the paddles are open a strong vortex of water is formed so anyone falling into the canal at that point would be sucked downwards – not a scenario you ever want to happen. The lock fills with water and once the water level is balanced you can open the top gates and the boat leaves the chamber to continue on its journey. Meanwhile the paddles have to be lowered and the gates closed. All this takes a lot of wellie and I am still surprised that the majority of people I see with the windlass are women, whilst the men are just at the helm! Not all lockgates are as tough and heavy as the ones on the GUC and some gates are operated by a lockkeeper and are electric. However we have really had a baptism by fire and Richard kindly did all the locks because he’s a real gent!
The six locks were immediately followed by the tunnel, which although I was helming when we entered, I soon handed the steering over to Richard as I knew all I would do is bounce the boat from one side to the other. It’s only just wide enough for two boats and you just hope that you don’t meet too many coming in the other direction. Looking behind the light gets smaller and smaller and then ahead the pinprick of light slowly grows bigger and bigger until eventually you heave a large sigh of relief as daylight surrounds you and we were greeted by a beautiful autumnal evening. We moored up and exhaustedly did nothing for the rest of the day except eat a tasty homemade curry infront of our toasty warm stove.
NarrowboatTLC 