Back on the move again.

If you have been popping in daily to see my ramblings, I am sorry I have not been around. It has been a busy time, with one thing and another.

As you may remember from my Welford posting, Keith’s bad was decidedly dodgy and that did not improve for a few days, so when the coal delivery came, it was up to me to stack the four tonne in the hold, which was not a problem as I have done it many times. With the hold full of coal, Hadar was sitting nice and low in the water, which really suits her.

Whilst at Welford, the Mikron Theatre paid the pub a visit and performed Beyond the Veil. Keith was still struggling with his back, so I went on my own, I even went and got myself half a pint of Timothy Taylor, which was enjoyed whilst having a laugh.

On Sunday we had work done on our battery trays, had a couple of holes cut in our hold doors for ventilation and Les made us a new bracket for our Klaxon, photographs will follow once I have painted it. So with jobs done, it was time to leave.

Travelled 9.2 miles, worked 1 lock in a time of 4 hours 5 minutes.

We left Welford at 11am and the sun was trying hard to come out.

Goodbye to the wet dock, that is the one with the door closed. We were in there to have our battery trays done.

Keith took this photograph yesterday in the dock.

When we got to the lock there was a boat just going into the lock to go down. We then entered the lock and NB Casson was turned up to take the lock over from us, so perfect timing. We got to the junction at 11.50am and moored up for some lunch. For sometime now we have thought that our stern gland was leaking and despite tightening it up a little, water still seemed to be leaking into the bilge. Whilst we were moored up, I pulled the back cabin floor up and shone the leadlight under there whilst Keith had the engine running in gear and I discovered it was not the stern gland at all, the leak is behind that and was spurting water into the bilge, so this means we have to go back to Welford to get Les to have a look to see if he can find out the cause. At 1.05pm we set off to wind the boat, so we could go back down the Welford Arm. The first winding point was just past bridge 36, but we could not wind there as it was to shallow, so we carried on the just before bridge 28 and yep it was also to shallow grrrrrrr. Our only option will be to wind at the entrance to Yelvertoft Marina, but we decided with the day drawing in we would stop just before Yelvertoft village for the day.

I checked the bilge and it was half full of water, so we do need to get it sorted it out pronto. I have never done the weedhatch before mainly because I did not think I could lift the hatch cover as it is very heavy, but with Keith’s back still a little dodgy I said I would have a go and I actually found it was easy enough to do, the obstruction turned out to be a bramble, so nothing desperate, but I removed it anyway.  Also whilst on the move our temperature gauge was going up and the oil pressure was dropping, which usually means our impellor needs changing, so Keith took it apart and we were right two of the blades on the impellor had come off, so a new one was fitted. It has been one of those days one way or another and tomorrow I suspect will be no better as we head back to Welford again.