Monday 14 July 2014

Double locks, lots of ‘em.

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Another early start cruising in the cool morning air to descend the three locks at Calcutt. Here we met Mr Grumpy going into the bottom lock, I said ‘Hello’ and he grunted, I shut the gate for him anyway.he thought he would stay on his boat and let me do all the winding for him, hard luck mate! I dropped one paddle and left him to it. I went back down as he came out of the top gate. I said you haven’t dropped the paddle, to which he replied,’well I opened the gate for you! Well, whoopie doodle doo, he had to do that to come out! As we got to the top of the 10 Stockton Locks a single hander female was on the lock landing, on nb Pern. So we descended all the locks with her and we both moored overnight at Cuttle Bridge exhausted. Next day we moved early again to avoid the heat of the mid-day sun. We paired up with Pete and Dave on nb Hyskier down Bascote Staircase Locks , then went down another 6 with them. It was a real pleasure to chat and work the locks with them and listen to their engine purring along. It was a Gardiner LW3 which came from the lighthouse on Hyskier, hence the name of their boat. We moored at Radford Semele and they carried on a while.

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