Wednesday 8th June
I write to you from the jaunty angle that is our current mooring in Littleborough. Every time I stand up I gravitate to starboard!
What a day we’ve had! No water on the summit to speak of, then too much in the locks on the other side and now we are grounded again. It has rained all day as well. We were supposed to have showers but it was more like hard rain interspersed with not so hard rain!
It was touch and go whether we would make it over the summit at all because when we got up (early) this morning there was very little water in the pound above the next lock. Certainly not enough to fill the lock twice to get us up it. After a certain amount of toing and froing across the summit on foot to see the lock keeper it was established that he could get us enough water to go over. It was also established that although Lock 34 had a notice on saying single boats only, this was as a result of two boats getting stuck in there because they went in with fenders down, it was possible for us both to use it together. As this would save water that is what we did.
The lock keeper had indeed provided us with enough water to get up to the summit, see before and after photos of the pound, and we made it over quite easily in the end. However if we thought that our problems would be over now that we were going down we were very much mistaken. The next few locks were very full and water was pouring over the top gates and over the bottom gates as well. We had too much water and had to keep letting some out to get the gates open. Then when we got to the two single boat only locks one after the other we started to have problems with there being too little water again. How on earth had that happened, where had all the water from the previous locks gone to because it certainly wasn’t there?
Barbara and I had to go up to the previous lock and let some water down from the pound above so we had enough to fill the lock we wanted to fill twice. By this time it was absolutely sheeting down with rain, great! After the two single locks the water level improved a bit and we were getting along ok until we were approaching the last lock before we wanted to moor up. A boat was coming the other way, we exchanged moans about the weather and told them of the water level problems we had been having. They then said ‘Wait until you get down the next lock (the one they had just come up) you’ll grind to a halt!’
Sure enough there wasn’t much water in the pound below the lock. We waited for them to go into their lock then ran some water from the pound into ours and out into the pound below. Unfortunately we didn’t run enough down because just after he came out of the lock Ken did grind to a halt! We ran some more down but were in danger of draining the pound completely so Barbara went back up to the previous pound and ran some down from there until Ken got off the bottom. Barry meanwhile had managed to get round Ken and go off to moor up at Lock 46, in the little arm where we had moored on the way up.
Finally Ken made it to the mooring and found Barry right in the middle of the little arm, not able to get one side or the other, so we moored up on the lock approach moorings because that was the only place we could get in. As the previous lock was leaking badly we eventually gained some water in our pound so Barry moved over and we got our front end in beside them. We couldn’t go right in to the arm because the water level is about 18 in down on what it was when we were here last week so the bank at the end was too high to get George off. The gang plank would have been nearly vertical and he doesn’t do vertical climbing, bless!
Following a sandwich and a change of clothes (waterproofs are never really waterproof!) and when there was a break in the incessant rain we all trundled off to the Red Lion for a planning meeting and a well earned pint. We have decided what we want to do tomorrow but God knows if we will manage it!
