Back at Welford.

I am sure there is a flippen magnet at the end of the Welford Wharf, which keeps dragging boats back, because we are back in Welford with a leaky stern tube.

Travelled 11.6 miles, worked 1 lock in a time of 4 hours 20 minutes.

The first job of the morning after getting up, was to walk Paddy, on returning to the boat, I then bailed out six litres of water out of the bilge, from the leaky stern tube. We left our over night mooring at 8.40am and headed for Yelvertoft Marina, where we knew we could wind, unlike the fiasco yesterday at two shallow winding holes. We reached Yelvertoft marina at 9.10am and successfully winded in the entrance to the marina.

A couple of hitchhikers stood on the top plank whilst we winded.

A family of Geese hopped into the water as we headed off back towards Welford Junction. Whilst on the go I put a quick wash on and once it was done, I hung it to dry in the engine room.

Some of the fields are full of gold.

We did not encounter many boats on the move today so had a straight forward cruise to Welford Junction and arrived there at 12.25. We arrived at Welford Marina at 1,00pm and immediately closed the boat up and walked up to see Les at the boat yard. He has fitted us in to his busy diary for Thursday, when we will go into the dry dock. Les had a look at the leak and suspects a cracked stern tube, so we can expect a large bill for the work which needs to be carried out arghhhh, the poor bank balance is going to be depleted yet again this year. But that is the joys of owning a boat. Let know one tell you that owning a boat is cheap, because it most certainly is not. But I would not change my lifestyle for anything. Being a boat owner who continuously cruises means you have to be prepared for wear and tear bills.

We will now see what Thursday brings when Les starts work on the stern gear. I am certainly glad we did not do any river cruising this year now, as we had been thinking of doing the Thames and the Soar.