Aground again

Saturday 23rd August

We arrived at the boat last night to find her aground again, this has happened so often this year that it’s not novel any more. The angle that Jannock was listed over was not as steep as on the Thames. Brenda thought we might be able to sleep aboard without tipping out of the bed but I had other ideas. Having worked out how to ‘float my boat’ last time I decided it shouldn’t be too difficult here, the level was only down about 6 inches. After the prep work, and with a small shove from another boater, we were free to move back into deeper water and moor for the night against some piling in the glow of a terrific sunset.

We loosed off this morning and found ourselves aground yet again. It was easy to get her afloat this time but I do not know what is wrong with the Cropredy pound. The locals were complaining that it had been like this for three days. Village opinion was that there was some illegal extraction occurring as both the canal and river levels were well down.

As we set off up the locks from Cropredy to the summit we decided that this was the most boat traffic we had encountered all year so far. This is the first time we have passed this way since the new marina has opened and we spotted PC2 moored parallel with the canal and safely hooked up to a mains cable. We queued for every lock, usually third in line and it was the same for boats coming the other way. Aaah! August Bank Holiday on the Southern Oxford, mostly sunny with blue skies but the wind was very chill.

Once on the summit I was amused to find a boat approaching us through Fenny tunnel ( not a tunnel anymore as the roof was taken off a long time ago, but still narrow) with his tunnel light on. When I commented that it was the first boat I’d ever seen use a light there the steerer said that he thought it would make his grey boat stand out more.

Many of the boaters we met today were hirers. All seemed to be having a good time. If the weather co-operates an English holiday floats many a boat ;^)

As we moored for the night (well, actually Brenda was making our supper and experimenting with the Italian oven, Blackberry sponge worked well at Gas Mk 6 and the top of the oven, it took 45 minutes) part way down Napton flight, a hire boat came past very close. It’s crew of lads were walking to the next lock. We’d put the closeness down to the canal narrowing and inexperience. Not so, the steerer was almost taking the paint off the whole side so that one lad could get back aboard across Jannock’s cruiser stern. No “do you mind?” – of course we wouldn’t have, or “ may I?” Manners maketh the man or some such.

Graham