Burscough

Here I am Rune

Distance 9.2 miles

Total 1144 Locks 62 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1628.8miles

I really am getting a bit tired of these constant strong winds that we seem to be getting over the past few months. The forecasters are rubbish at predicting them since the forecast I read last night said wind speeds of about 12 – 15mph whereas what we have actually had today is winds of 25 – 30mph, which is a significant difference. It is when you get winds such as this that minor irritations can really niggle and today it was the half-wit who left his boat by Bridge 36, Spencer’s swing bridge. Now since it is necessary to stop and moor up to operate the swing bridge it makes it that much more difficult when an idiot is on the bridge mooring and ten times as difficult when it is blowing a gale! Fortunately I have a crew who, once they are ashore can go and operate the bridge whilst I have to brace myself to manually hold the boat against the wind. For someone who was single crewing this wouldn’t have been an option and I would say that if the person single crewing had been me I would have violently breasted up alongside the boat and tried to tie it off before it drifts away across the canal. If these muppets can afford a boat, they can afford some mooring pins to tie them up with rather than lazily using lock and bridge mooring points, rant over!

Because of the lack of mooring opportunities we have gone slightly further than necessary today and are now in sight of Bridge 33, Glovers Swing Bridge. Tomorrow it will be to Haskayne, either Bridge 21a or 20a.