Friday 12 August 2016

Mytchett Visitor centre



Here I am Rune
Distance 5.7 miles
Total 2016 Locks  90 Tunnels
Running total mileage 2824.3miles

As planned, we are up to Mytchett Visitor Centre after a hard days locking. Didn’t get off to a particularly auspicious start with a plastic bag around the prop first thing and a jammed gate at the first lock, but after that things can only get better! It was helpful that most of the locks were set for us as they leave them empty overnight although a problem with the pound above lock 18 caused a problem as a paddle had been left open and the pound was low needing the lockkeeper to bring some water down from further up the canal. 

We passed two of the Historic boats that had come to Woking for the festival last weekend and had decided to take a trip further along the canal. Since they have a draught of about 3 feet they had been having some problems with running aground. I’m glad that we met them at a lock since passing them in a pound between locks would have been virtually impossible. They need the centre line for greatest depth but unfortunately so do I. 

I can see we will need to work a bit harder on this canal than is our usual practice since tomorrow we need to get to Fleet in order to be in a position to get the the end by Sunday to enable us to turn around and get back to the locks by Wednesday. It sounds as though we are probably going to be the last boat along here for a while since the water level is down and they are taking no more bookings until we get a bit of rain.

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