Bartimaeus

Yesterday didn’t look a promising day to be in the middle of a big river.  I could think of two reasons to move on.  First, there was a marquee being built on the yacht club lawn across the water – was that a prelude to a noisy event?  The other was the lack of bread – I got on with making some straight after breakfast.  We walked along the canal a bit and found an excellent mooring opposite a field of cows – sorted.  It was only a short drive but it also brought us the other side of the flood gates – I didn’t think there was enough rain forecast for this to be significant.

This morning we had another reason to move on – we had now run out of milk!  There were only a few isolated showers in the forecast so we set off.  We decided to get our life jackets out of the cupboard for the big river.

There were volunteers operating Cranfleet Lock, so neither of us had to step off to pass through. I set off on to the Trent with the propellor hardly turning, knowing that the current would take us briskly along – if 3 or 4 mph is considered brisk.

On a walk yesterday we’d seen a large notice warning of a hazard.  Today I could see a hazard in the water too.  Looking at the picture, I can see a distance under the diagram.  I can’t see how far it says, and still don’t know if it means how far ahead it is, or how long it lasts.

A little further downstream there was an obvious hazard.  I presume it has been placed there to mark something else.  I kept to the middle of the river anyway, the flow downstream is generally faster there, and we didn’t see any other moving boats, so there was nothing else to avoid.

Some distance further downstream we came across a similar arrangement.  This one however had a sign on it for boats coming the other way.  Perhaps this was the end of the section we were warned about earlier.

Another sign further on made it clear which side of an island I should go.  I steered gently left as suggested, but soon realised that all this had achieved was putting the boat side on in to the flow that was going to the right.  A short burst of throttle fixed the problem, but reminded me again that driving in moving water is quite different from our usual canal travels.

It wasn’t far to Beeston Lock.  I got Clare to be ready to tie the bow rope when we arrived at the lock landing.  I was being over cautious though – as I had hoped, we were in slack water above the lock, so controlling the boat was easy.  Clare went to operate the lock leaving me to untie the ropes at my leisure.

I had idly wondered if there was an alternative to going through Nottingham, but a walk later on revealed what a bad idea it would be to attempt to stay with the main flow.