Thursday 20th August, 2015 in Dewsbury.
A very pleasant morning dawned. It is noticeable that dawn is much later and sunset much earlier now.
We made an early start in order to go through Broad Cut Top lock, which was only a few hundred yards away and set in our favour. There were two cabin cruisers moored up below the lock and two nice chaps from the cruisers came up to the lock to help us. They cheerfully admitted that they had no idea how the locks worked -and so were eager to learn.
At Horbury Bridge, there is a refuse station and as R manoevered to moor up, MM's engine suddenly stopped dead. Clearly we had picked up something in the propellor. R immediately opened up the weed hatch as we drifted helplessly down the middle of the (very wide) canal. Luckily, we were close to a wide beam Dutch Barge moored at the side and the owners very kindly caught a rope from us and we were able to tie up alongside them.
Poor R, it took an hour of sweating and struggling (and a modicum of swearing) to free the prop using all manner of implements including the bread knife and a hacksaw. (note from M: no photo of this, as she didn't have the heart to take one of R's herculean struggles). The culprit turned out to be a waterproof jacket that had wound itself tightly around the propellor shaft. R had to shred it to get it off. M hoped that there might be lots of dosh or even a winning lottery ticket in the pocket - but no such luck.
We said a very grateful "Thank You" to the folks on "Itchy Feet", who had come to our rescue and we set off once more with sigh of relief.
The next two locks come together, in a very pretty setting and are called the "Figure Three Locks". There used to be a third lock down to the River Calder that runs alongside at this point but no one is quite sure of the origin of the unusual name.
We had teamed up with nb "Avatar", and her owner, who was sailing on his own, to go through the locks and we were also helped by the crew of a narrowboat coming the other way. Avatar's owner was a self-confessed fan of the film.
All of the locks on this section have walkways on the lower gates that stick out about 18 inches and, if you are not careful, it is possible to get the boat's tiller caught under the walkway as the lock fills.
At Dewsbury, there is an arm of the canal that goes in towards the centre of the town and our mooring, while we go home for a few days, is at the top end of it. So, we were going to turn to the right, while Avatar would turn left and immediately go through two locks.
As he was on his own and we had plenty of time in hand, we moored up and helped him through the two locks.
On our way back to MM, we spotted this sign for what promised to be an unorthodox festival! M remarked it would probably be a bit of a bummer.
Halfway up the short arm, this lovely mural caught our attention.
The boatyard lies at the very end of the arm and goes off at right angles to the main arm round a very tight bend. R had to turn MM, with only about a foot to spare, and back her down the narrow gap between the bank on one side and moored boats on the other. Terry, our boating instructor, would have been proud of him; M certainly was!
Just as he was manoevering into our mooring - again we got something on the propellor. Would you believe it??? We had to pull MM in on ropes with the kind help of a lady from a neighbouring boat.
After securing MM, removing a bunch of plastic from the propellor, hooking up to the electricity supply and getting an electric card from the Marina office, we walked into Dewsbury Railway Station to get our pre-booked tickets for tomorrow from the machine.
It was a lot further than we anticipated and, sadly, Dewsbury appears to lack any kind of coffee shop!
Tomorrow, we are off home for a few days for family events and we are planning to resume our cruise next Thursday/Friday - so please watch this space!!
Today: 5 miles, 4 locks and 2.4 hours.
Trip: 265 miles (of about 370 miles), 158 locks (of about 290 locks) and 167.8 hours.
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