Watford Locks to Crick.

We had a wild night on board, with lots of rocking and rolling and no we were not partying, it was purely down to the weather. There was also a lot of heavy rain which is of course most welcome at the moment as the reservoirs are still struggling with their water levels. Yesterday I was told that the levels are creeping up slowly, which whilst great, this may not be fast enough to stop restrictions when the boating season gets underway for many. Of course for us all year round is a boating season being continuous cruisers.

After a rock and roll nights sleep, which woke me up a couple of times as it did Keith, we sat in bed drinking tea at 7.30am discussing whether to move or not.

The decision was yes we would move as the wind did not seem to bad. So having walked Paddy up the locks, had breakfast and got the boat ready for the off, we set off from our over night mooring at 9.20am. I set the first lock and Keith bought the boat in, I opened the paddles to fill the lock and then walked up to the second lock to let some water down into a very empty pound, it was down by at least two foot, which is not good. I let in enough water for Keith to creep into the second lock. I shut the gates behind him and opened the paddles, before walking back to the first lock to close the gate. Phew we managed that bit without to much of a hitch. The rest of the flight was ok apart from being blown around by the wind. The water level above the top lock was down by a couple of inches, but nothing to worry about we hoped as we made our way towards Crick Tunnel. Whilst we cruised through the tunnel, I made got our cups ready for a coffee and sat in the back cabin. As we came out of the Crick end of the tunnel the wind had suddenly got much stronger, so we decided that it would be best to stop and shelter from the ever increasing winds.

We managed to eventually get into a mooring opposite Crick marina, I was struggling to pull the bow in, which was being blown out into the canal by the strong winds. With the centre line tied to a mooring ring, Keith bought the bow in under power and I immediately tied the bow up before it could escape back out into the centre of the cut, that is how strong the wind was. As I sit here typing this posting it is really blowing up a storm and according to the Radio 2 it is chaos out on the roads and rail, with bridges closed, trees and lines down. We are now battening down the hatches and staying inside for the rest of the day.

Stay safe out there xxx