Quiet Day, But With Entertainment And A Nasty Surprise At The End

Little Woolstone (Milton Keynes) to Bugbrooke

(posted by Cath) 

Alan was up and about early this morning, and couldn’t understand why I was still lying in bed snoring, when I’m usually in the bath by 6 am.  The truth is that I push myself for 6 or 7 weeks during term time, then I collapse when we get to a holiday.  I finally got up at about 8:20, while Alan was walking Charlie.  I made coffee, and porridge, and we finally got going around 9, and had our breakfast on the back of the boat as we headed off.

I took a long stint steering around Milton Keynes, following a slow Wyvern hire boat, which pulled over at Wolverton to go shopping.

At Cosgrove I jumped off with Charlie, saying that I was taking him for a walk, and that I’d see them when they caught up with me – Oh, and by the way, the cassette needs emptying.

I walked, and walked in the spring sunshine. I started to get hot, so stopped to take off a layer of clothing, which I tied around my waist.  Then I walked until I got hot again, so I stopped to take off another layer of clothing – it had been cold standing on the back of the boat earlier.   Charlie started panting, and thinking that he wanted to drink canal water – which I discouraged.

Eventually, I started to wonder if the boat had broken down, but reminded myself that if that had happened, then David would come to find me on one of the bicycles, so I kept walking, thinking that Charlie needed the exercise.  Finally, at Yardley marina Charlie started to look hopefully at another boat moored up, to see if it was ‘his’ boat – so I stopped.

Charlie and I sat by the bridge for some time, until David hove into view on a bicycle.  No, they hadn’t broken down, they just were behind me, and starting to panic that somehow I might be behind them.  David rang Alan, who appeared quite a long time later, and I, and a grateful Charlie, jumped back on board.  Next time I go for a short walk with the dog, I’ll take my phone.

David speeds us through Stoke Locks

Working up Stoke Bruerne With An Efficient Hire Boater

At the Stoke flight we went up with a Gayton Marina Alvechurch hire boat, Pied Billed Grebe, the boat that Charlie had previously thought he’d cadge a lift on at Yardley Wharf.  The man, said that he’d last done any canal boating when he was 10, but he certainly seemed to know what he was doing.  We got talking to them, as one does, they had a nice dog, and a pleasant young daughter, who helped at all the locks.  Some of the paddles are very stiff up this flight, so I chose to use the long throw aluminium windlass, which I don’t usually use.

When we got to the top, they decided to pull over to go for an ice cream.  Alan decided that he wanted a beer, so we pulled onto the water point to refill while I went to get some drinks.  At this point disaster struck.  I was focused on jumping back onto the boat, and getting my wallet, I undid my belt, not thinking that the expensive aluminium windlass was tucked into the back.  There was only a small gap between the boat and the side, but the windlass fell into the canal, just outside The Boat restaurant.  I watched as it sank – far slower than I thought it would, but not slowly enough that I could grab it.

Being aluminium there was no chance that we’d get it back with a magnet.  Alan has often said that I’d lose it, and is always warning me to be careful.  David thought that as it had sunk slowly it might still be where it had fallen in, and he went to get the boat hook.

After a bit of poking around with the boat hook we thought that we might possibly have identified the windlass, but it was far too far down to drag it out.  David is tall, with long limbs, so volunteered to strip to the waist and lean in from the side to try to get it out.  I held his belt, and the man from Pied Billed Grebe held his feet, but although he stuck his head and shoulders under it wasn’t enough.  “You don’t want to strip to your underwear and try to find it with your feet?” I said to David.

Hero  resscuing Cath's Windlass

“I’ll do it,” said the man from Pied Billed Grebe.  “No, no, we can’t ask you to do that,” we said.  “You’re not asking, I’m volunteering. I work at a yacht club, it’s nothing new for me,” and before we knew it he had stripped down to his underpants on the back of the hire boat, in full view of the crowds in Stoke Bruerne on a busy spring afternoon, and had slipped into the canal to feel for our windlass with his feet.

Although it was a hot day, the canal must have been very cold, but he spent some time up to his shoulders in the water dedicatedly trying to find our windlass.  He ducked completely under a couple of times, without finding anything.

He was hidden from the crowds outside the museum by our boat, which we had moored on slack lines, and were holding away from the side.  But the drinkers and the queue of people buying ice cream at The Boat were all watching with unbridled curiosity.  That’s the point that we realised that a crowd of the diners in the Restaurant were watching from above through the panoramic windows, cheering and waving.

He walked up and down in the gap between our boat and the side, but couldn’t find anything.  We tried a number of times to persuade him to get out, but he was determined, and suddenly he ducked in again, and surfaced, triumphant, with my long throw windlass.

He jumped out of the canal, took a dripping bow for the crowds and disappeared into his boat for a shower.

Once again, I am staggered by the self-less generosity of people.

After that just about everything seemed tame.  We had a pint, and headed off through the tunnel.  It was still early, so Alan continued on for a few miles beyond Blisworth, finally mooring at Bugbrooke.

(added  by Alan) 

Or we thought everything seemed tame........

After Cath made the above pronouncement, I decided to lock the bikes up in the engine room.  Knowing I could not easily access the engine in the morning, I decided to do engine checks before I blocked access to it.  I was horrifed to find large amounts of engine oil disgorged into the bilge, and a check on the dip-stick confirmed a large loss of oil during the day - but mercifully not severe enough to result in any damage.

By then it was too late to do any real diagnosis, but none of the obvious places it might be leaking seemed to be candidates, and the starter motor was dripping oil underneath.  My immediate fear was failure of the rear crankshaft oil seal - a part buried deep behind the gearbox and flywheel, and not a repair job I could carry out canal-side, I think.  I decided to ask for likely causes on the Canal World Discussion Forums, and not unsurprisingly several people thought a similar cause was likely.  BMC engines are known to have this oil seal fail.......

Too late to attempt to isolate the problem, I went to bed, rather dejected that, at the very least, outr much needed break was about to be terminated.

Little Woolstone (Milton Keynes) to Bugbrooke
Miles: 21.9, Locks:8
Total Miles: 40, Total Locks:22