Bartimaeus

We hope to offer guests an interesting visit with some typical canal features and depending on experience or interests that can include few or many locks, tunnels, pubs, gentle cruising or high activity against a deadline. Bryn had a flexible deadline and had been introduced to heavy locking at first then they were spaced out but double with a short tunnel too. These are all things we have done before but he likes them, a visit to Retford museum on market day afforded an extra note of interest we hadn’t planned for. A tidal river section, though, he was less familiar with and with the addition of extra lifejackets, it was possible. The tide timings were unsuitable for Mugs and Roland. We would have not been sure we could get there while a lock keeper was on duty.

While Bryn was here, the tide times were reasonable and I  phoned and booked in and both lockkeepers were helpful giving advice about timings and whether we could moor at the far end that there was another boater Blue Moon with us. The Keadby lockie told me when to let them know we were close and how to approach the  lock. They were reassuring about night passage through the rail bridge that only opened once a day.

We arrived back at West Stockwith in good time. Shane spoke to one of the instigators of Trent link and the Try the Trent Facebook page which were both set up to share useful information and be encouraging to others to go on it. Shane told me there was a new notification that Nick had recently added. This was not in the reassuring category but a salutory reminder to pay attention to your charts and driving and that buddying up can be helpful. There was a photo of a narrow boat stranded on gravel that had gone aground between  Torksey and West Stockwith. No other boats were with them on the trip (the same as us when we did that stretch).They had to wait stranded until the next high tide came and they could drive off, but that was night time and the lock keeper had guided him into mooring outside the lock at West Stockwithuntilthe levelswere right to operate the lock. This sounded scary but was at least not the section we were approaching and in fact this last section had less risk of grounding. Still, while we had been doing a lock that morning a passing cyclist had paused to watch and said he had just seen the water going very fast and more debris, including large logs, than he’d ever seen before. Well let us assume that would be long gone by the time we went down.

Our time to enter the lock arrived and we started to cast off and manoeuvred towards getting in but I hadn’t seen Blue Moon. Then the lock keeper came to the edge of the lock and shouted across the marina “Blue Moon”. He obviously knew where they were moored. After a few minutes they joined us then he asked the lock keeper if he had time to go into his weed hatch as something didn’t sound right. The lock keeper gave the decision to Shane whether he wanted to wait and also told him there was another boat in about an hour and the lock would be operated again then. Shane thought it best to let him check his propellor. The propellor was clear, which was good but was anything else not right, I wondered He seemed happy to have looked and the lock keeper duly dropped us down to the Trent.

As well as having no control over the tide times, we couldn’t influence the weather, nor the forecasting. It had been a fine morning and Shane hadn’t expected a wet journey, but it certainly wasn’t looking bright and before long the rain started. There is no opportunity to pull in and moor up so reading the tide in the rain was the only option. I offered Bryn my waterproof trousers since he only had one spar pair. He had brought his own raincoat. He helped keep Shane on course, while I fetched hot drinks.

Blue Moon had a back cover up to protect from the weather. They were always in sight. There were a few tide level indicators and some landmarks and allwas going smoothly and he rained eased off.

Sooner than expected the bridge at which I was to ring the lock keeper appeared ahead. It was a motorway bridge and another grey expanse, but the weather was much less grey now and made us all smile. I let the lockie know that Blue Moon was with us close behind. 

The next bridge looked much more dramatic, due to a “lifting span”. It was made the more dramatic by a crowd of pigeons perched along the girders that became a cloud of pigeons as a train crossed. This was a few metres lower than the motorway bridge but we are not tall enough to worry, but the height of the water does vary with the tide.

Shane turned in to the lock, remembering to turn 180° to go against the tide on approach, and we we got ropes sorted while we waited for Blue Moon to turn and enter too. I had seen a camera held up on approach and later when I shared our experience on Try The Trent, the skipper made a comment and shared their picture of us turning in ahead of them.

There was another job for the lock keeper straight after, a road bridge, and then we could get through, but the rail bridge being closed until 10pm meant we had to find a place to moor soon. Blue Moon had pulled in to the water point but it didn’t look like there were any other spaces so we squeezed in too.

An hour or two later another boat arrived that had left later. Shane invited them to breast up since there wasn’t space to moor easily. They fastened on and he was grateful. He had had enough drama as his late arrival meant the low tide and silting round the lock had made his entrance to it difficult.  It turned out Steelaway was a time share boat and he liked it so much he had bought a second share so he could go further. 

We spent our time, chatting to the  other boaters and Shane got his lights and I had a short walk around Keadby until sunset. 

When it was time to go towards the sliding rail bridge, in the hope it would slide, four narrow boats, Cockney Rebel, Blue Moon, Bartimaeus and Steelaway slowly headed into the darkness. Steelaway thought his lights were poor and wanted to follow us down. A man from the other side of the bridge had told us it was tight on space beyond and warned us about the sunken craft near him so we didn’t think that was a good space in the dark. 

We paused and heard klaxxons and the bridge opened. We let the boats going the other way come through first and waved to them as they passed in the night, warning them and then the railwaymen another was behind us and moored up in the dark before the road bridge. A strange day of waiting for tides and darkness before onward travel, but all had gone well for us.