Stern Out of the Water!

Sunday 29th May 2022 at Bank Newton.

It was very clear when we woke up that something was not right. Poor MM was at a very strange angle.

Overnight, the water level had dropped by about 10 inches and MM's stern was well out of the water. You could even see the propellor! Without more water, we were not going anywhere.

Steve, the C&RT lock keeper, arrived at 10:00 to unlock the lock and, after seeing a pair of boats down through the lock, took his bicycle up by the next three locks and started letting some extra water down into the pound. Dave, on nb "Legend" very kindly offered to give us a tow to get us off the bottom. Dave took our bow rope and attached it to Legend's stern.

On the second attempt, MM floated free at last. Many thanks to Steve for his help and to Dave and Legend - or we would be there still.

With nine locks ahead of us, we went through them with Dave, Anne-Marie and Legend.

With two boats and four "crew", the nine locks went very quickly.

Half way up, we met nb "Carleton", that Richard and Annette had hired last week, coming down the locks from the area that we would have taken them to last week if the lock hadn't been closed. So frustrating!

Dave had what is traditionally called a "Keb", otherwise known these days as a Manure Rake, which is used to haul reeds etc out of the canal. 

Dave and Anne-Marie were delightful companions and we had a lot of laughs together. They moored up at the start of the Bank Newton bends while we went on a bit further.

After we moored up, we heard music that sounded like an accordion, but turned out to be a melodeon being played by a lady on a neighbouring boat. Beautiful!

High up here on the Yorkshire Dales, the views are spectacular and sunrises and sunsets can be seen right down to the horizon. Sadly we will only spend tonight here as M has to go home on Tuesday for a while. However, R will stay with MM as there are no suitable marinas up here where we could leave her and he plans to come back up here while M is away.

Note: R is writing this as M is now at home, so M has not been able to do her usual excellent editing (and improvement) job. As a result, all spelling and grammar errors, are down to R!

Today: 2 miles, 9 locks and 1.5 hours.

Trip: 159 miles, 115 locks and 91.5 hours.