Where has all the Water gone.

Dear Friends and Followers.

I trust that your weekend went well?

Our weekend was spent calling out the Canal and River Trust to send us down some much needed water, because we got so low we were all listing at a dangerous angle. One of our residential moorers actually could not stay on his boat, because it was not safe for him, so he went to stay with a friend and is still there. The problem we have here is boats come up through Cape Locks and either come into the Arm, moor up outside the Arm or Wind and then go back down Cape Locks. What they do not do straight away is go up the Hatton Flight, so the pound get drained of water, which leaves us on the bottom and listing. Of course with no rain of late this has just made things worse.
It all got so much worse on Friday. One of our boaters went up to the top of Hatton and asked them to send water down, none came. Our site manager rang C&RT and despite them saying they would call him back they never did and no water came down. By 5.45 pm we were in desperate need of water, so we rang C&RT. They sent Mark and Tim out from Birmingham to help us out. They reckoned someone had let some water down, draining the first pound above the bottom lock, so not only did they have to get us some water they had to fill the pound as well.
Saturday morning and although our level had been up over night, it had already dropped when I got up at around 7.30 am. We had a few of our visiting boats going out down through Cape Lock and our day boat going out, so we and the site manager rang C&RT again. Yet again they sent the guys out to try and help us. By the time our day boat came in, it had a problem winding and then could not get anywhere near the pontoon due to the low level of water, so this time Tim and Carl came out to get us water.
Sunday morning and you guessed it, the water we had over night was already disappearing. Now some of it is due to boats taking it with them down through Cape Locks, but we also know the lock gates leak a lot, which we think was the problem on Sunday morning. So yes we were all back on the phone again and two different C&RT guys came out and promised us they would get some water down to us, which they did.
Lots of discussions have been had over the past few days as to how this situation is going to be sorted once and for all. These have included putting in an extra board at the by-weir to bring the level up, that is the cheapest option all the way to the expensive option of back pumping and dredging. One thing is certain they are on the case and so are we. All we can do is keep ringing C&RT up and hoping that someone will help us with water. One thing is certain for those in C&RT who did not know where we were, they certainly do now.
Today is Monday and the two C&RT guys came in this morning to check on the water level and once again it had dropped, so water was going to be sent down. We are floating thankfully, with our boat pushed out into the channel and hopefully it will stay that way. With the weather the way it is and Summer only just getting underway, it looks like this maybe a problem we will have to cope with for now.