Bang Crash Wallop

We pulled pins at Braunston at 09.15 on Saturday morning and headed straight onto the service point to fill with water and get rid of waste.Just outside of Braunston marina is a floating cafe called the Gongoozlers rest. Every time we cruise by we get hit with the odour of fried bacon. But this time we decided to stop and get a couple of bacon butties and they were just the ticket. Next we hit the Braunston flight of locks and were joined by Nb Dawn. They were new live boards and had only been aboard for 5 weeks but seemed to be enjoying it so far.We had intended to stop at Norton junction but as the weather was fairly good and there wasn't a great deal of room we carried on down the Buckby flight and picked up a mooring below the bottom lock.


At Buckby top lock ..  If looks could kill. I jumped off with the windlass and all i said was i will do this lock you steer the boat in and lock down….. Don't worry i took it down the lock ….(I think the look will be even worse when Carolyn sees I've posted this picture).

                                                                                                                             FIRE.

                                                                                                  Summer is coming.

                                                             The strangest tender we have ever seen. Not sure what it is used for but he was towing it.

The view from our side hatch, we are moored at Whilton opposite the marina. Ideal if you are a train spotter. On the other side of us about 100 yards away is the M1 Motorway so this has to be one of the noisiest moorings around.There is a good farm shop just above the bottom lock and Carolyn always likes to stock up from there. There is a Garden centre and guess what ? A Chandlers..We only spent £7 pound in there this time on a new holster for Carolyn’s windlass. With heavy winds forecast on Sunday we decided to spend the day here and then move on Monday morning.

                                                                                                                          I wish i was as happy as him.

The winds certainly were strong on Sunday. There were a lot of boats moving and all passing us very fast as they couldn't control their boats at low revs in all the wind. Half way through the football (well done Spurs) there was an almighty bang in front of us. The boat in the picture above had come out of the marina and decided to reverse back onto the diesel pump at the marina. In all the wind he could not control his boat and after hitting the boat in front of us very hard he then gave us a right old bump and started scraping up the side of us. I jumped out of the side hatch and pushed him off and he then went bang into the boat opposite. After refuelling he tried to get back into the marina. In the picture after revving the nuts out of the engine and hitting yet another boat that was moored below the marina entrance he is actually trying to pull the boat with the bow rope into the marina entrance. In total he hit 4 boats and he couldn't even bother to say sorry….What a NOB.
We are now starting to get some good results from the solar panels as the days are longer and we have had some good days of sunshine. On Sunday we never ran the engine at all and we were getting up to 17 amps which for March is very good.
                                                                    Happy Days