Bartimaeus

Having reached the limit of navigation at Ripon we could now be certain that we fitted in to all the locks.  We’d been warned (and I’d seen) that the head gates leak, especially in the shortest lock.  Going up, it is a good idea to shut the front doors to keep our bed dry.  The outside deck is self-draining, so there are no further problems.  Going down things are different.  The leaks are not in evidence when we enter the lock, but become apparent as the water level drops – they are also at the same end as the helm.  Someone needs to be at the helm to ensure the boat doesn’t drift back to the cill.

The sides of a traditional boat go almost as far as the stern with a small deck behind to stand on while steering.  In some cases the deck is so short that the top cabin step is a more comfortable perch.  Bartimaeus has a semi-traditional stern – the sides go most of the way to the back, but there is an open section of deck within them astern of the cabin (our engine and batteries live under there).

We usually leave the doors to the stern deck open, but a leaky lock is one exception.  By closing the doors I was able to protect myself from almost all of the splashing.  I can still hold the tiller from there.

Once the lock was ready, Clare opened one of the gates while I held the bow behind the other.  I used the bow thruster to push the bow towards the open side while gently reversing back towards the cascade over the cill.  In the top lock there are only a few inches spare, I needed those back doors shut!

At the second lock we met the friendly lock keeper we’d spoken to in the other direction.  She tried to help us exit the lock by opening the gate, but she was too quick and blocked the bow moving to the other side instead.  That was soon remedied and we continued on our way.

I remembered that Clare had struggled to open one of the gates on the next lock, so I worked it leaving Clare to drive.  I knew to pay attention to the notice and lift the footboard before opening the gate.

We had made a reasonably early start by our standards, and arrived at Boroughbridge in time for lunch with Jude and Pete.  When the weather brightened, we went for a short cruise upstream and back before having a curry as recommended by the regulars in the Linton Lock Inn.

Jude had kindly transported a pile of items that had been delivered to Edinburgh since we were last there.  It looked massive when we arrived, but out of the packaging it was a manageable size.  None of the items had been urgent when ordered, but time has moved on.  I ordered a new mobile phone a few months ago.  In the meantime, I had been notified that a network upgrade would render my old one incapable of making voice calls by the end of that week.  I sometimes get notice of medical appointments that way, so it was a priority to switch to the new device.

Pete had returned to Edinburgh by the time we were ready to leave Boroughbridge.  It was a bright day so we offered Jude another cruise, this time on the section of river below Milby Lock.  On the way up we had seen many kingfishers, so I was hoping we might see more.  

She helped us work through the lock and we drifted down the river.  We were all delighted with many sightings of kingfishers.  I caught a glimpse of what I thought must have been an otter.  We didn’t get a proper sighting, but we could hear it calling in the vegetation at the side of the river.  We hadn’t managed to find a way for Jude to get back from Linton, so we turned back after an hour or so and returned to the lock jetty.  Strangely the interesting fauna seemed to have vanished.  We moored up and had lunch before she returned home on foot.

We set off for Linton, again hoping to see kingfishers and otters, but nothing showed.  After a while I suggested Clare should start the diesel engine.  The batteries were going to need a bit of a charge.  The engine started, but something was odd about it.  It turned out that the throttle wasn’t working.  The single lever that you push forward or backward was selecting the correct direction, but the engine speed wasn’t changing at all – we were stuck at tick-over.

We confirmed that in electric drive we still had control, so we could use that if we needed more power.  I checked the distance and concluded we could still get to Linton before dark, though we might not make it before sunset.  We did a lot of it on diesel at tick-over.  The batteries don’t get charged very quickly like that, but at least they are going up instead of down.

Just before sunset, I fitted the navigation lights on to the stirrups at the front – I hadn’t expected to need them again so soon.  As the sun set and the air grew colder I switched to electric to go a bit faster.  We arrived at Linton in the gloaming and squeezed on to the lock bollards – the only space available.