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| Giving captain Glen a break |
From Sunday June 8. This is a bit of a long post - hope it's not too boring! I'm moving the font size up a bit to make it easier for me to read :-)
Well, we’ve been aboard the “Maria” for just over a week, and are now old hands at navigating narrow sections of canal, and operating the myriad of locks, swing bridges, and drawbridges. This has been an amazing experience. We have seen the backroads of the Midlands, talked to so many people, had a pint in small local pubs, walked through ancient villages, hiked footpaths in the countryside, and taken hundreds of pictures.
We probably travel a maximum of 5 - 8 miles per day on the boat - it’s a slow process as it’s important to travel slowly to ensure we don’t cause too much wake, or bank erosion occurs. As well, every 20 minutes or so there is bound to be a lock or multiple locks to operate, a drawbridge that needs pulling up, or a bunch of canal boats tied up next to the tow path - we need to slow down so as not to
cause too much wake to bother them. I can actually walk faster than the boat travels! It’s a slow way of life, and a most enjoyable one - we saw a rental canal boat yesterday painted with the slogan “The Fastest Way to Slow Down”, and I thought that was a wonderful description. It’s so easy to enjoy the scenery, the flowers, the vegetation, the cows, the sheep, the beautiful old houses, the ducks, geese and swans, and the gorgeous bridges when you’re travelling slowly enough to really see them.
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| Goose parents and goslings |
We’ve met a number of people who live aboard their boats year-round, and they are a fountain of information on ideal spots to
moor for the night, where the best pubs are, and what the best stops are for the most interesting things to stop and see. There is a camaraderie amongst boaters as well as the myriad of local walkers - everyone stops to say hello or to help with the locks. We have our Canadian flag flying at the front of the boat - Glen is always a flag man! If they don’t see the flag, most people ask where in “America” we are from when they hear our ‘accents’! According to one woman, she felt I must be American because I didn’t say ‘aboot’ - can’t say I’ve ever heard a Canadian pronounce 'about' that way, but she was convinced that we all do.
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| I raised this drawbridge, and you can see Glen sailing the Maria past. The bridges are either cranked up with the windlass used for the locks, or we use a special canal boaters key. |
The English Canal system was originally developed to transport goods such as wool, brick,
pottery, lime etc. around the country. There are “towpaths” beside the canals which were used by horses to tow the boats along. Now the towpaths are used by the local population as a walking path or cycling path. I was told I could walk all the way to London via towpaths.
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| Typical bridge on the canal, and the towpath on the left side. |
A number of times, the canals actually cross OVER a highway or river way - they become giant bathtubs! Seems weird to boat over a highway.
There are so many beautiful stone or brick bridges to pass under. Each bridge is numbered, so you can tell where you are in the system. When we called the police after our robbery, we described where we were by telling them which bridges we were between.
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| Aquaduct in the town of Congleton. The boats cruise above the road in the overhead bathtub! |
Operating the locks is like having a gym membership. Glen is chief navigator and I am chief locks operator. Each set of locks requires cranking 4 plugs and moving big heavy gates. I am very thankful that I stayed in shape at Jason’s gym before leaving - the cranks are sometimes very stiff and hard to move - others are a little easier. The basic premise of operation is that I need to get the water level inside
the lock to the same level as the boat - so we are either moving up the lock or down the lock. I crank up two cranks for each gate at one end, let the water in or out, and then open the gate so Glen can enter the lock. Then I have to close those gates, crank down the locks, move up to the other end of the lock, crank those two up, open that gate once the water is level, Glen
moves the boat out of the lock, and I put the gate back, and crank down the levers again. A day usually involves 8 - 10 locks, as well as operating the odd swing bridge or drawbridge.
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| Typical lock |
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| Boat is in the lock now waiting for me to raise up the water level |
Canal boating is referred to by everyone as a “contact sport”! There are places where the canal is very narrow, especially going under bridges. It’s pretty tough not to ‘contact’ the edges of the canal, which are often stone or brick, and other times a kind of iron siding. We’ve ‘contacted’ the odd boat as well as countless side banks and bridge walls. I suspect the live-aboards aren’t too fond of us newbies! The boats are made of steel, so they can take a fair bit of bashing.
I think my favourite part of all this is hearing the birds - there are a LOT of birds singing here - in the morning
when we wake up, and all day long. It’s something one doesn’t hear when travelling in a car. Doves are all over the place and make the most beautiful sounds. The ducks, geese and swans are all teaching their babies how to swim right now . . . and teaching them that canal boats are an excellent source of food. They come right up to the boat as soon as they see us.
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| Swan family - really good at begging for food! |
Because we’re out in the country so much, we’ve found that internet access has been spotty
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| Cabin interior shots |
There’s a lot of pollen in the air when out in the country. My eyes are at full-puff, and I go through a lot of kleenex. But it’s all worth it! It’s so beautiful out here.
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