Well good morning. Have a look at this mooring it's stunning. Today even though
it's raining I've decided that I'm gonna head to Ellesmere on the boat,
because I'm still Kath-less and while it's gorgeous here if Kath was here with
me it's a little bit lonely by myself. Not that I'm going to Ellesmere to make
friends- but there's a few coffee shops there and also a Tesco and there's the
Meres that I wouldn't mind having a walk around so I thought that would keep me
occupied for a little while. So I am going to unmoor the boat and set off in
search of friends I mean in search of Ellesmere.
So the other day I didn't put
on the second centreline and I knew I was being lazy when I did it and I
really regretted it. So I'm gonna put on the second centre
line today.
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The bridges we're going under are just one boat width wide so you are kind of
looking to see if there are boats coming. And what I find because they are only
the width of a boat there's probably a gunwale's space on each side.
Extra. So what I do is I line it up on my good side which is my left side and I
just make sure there's an extra gunwale always gives you a little bit of
maneuvering space as well and then you definitely know that you're not going to
hit the other side. As opposed to kind of running backwards and forwards
across your back deck- which I have been known to do also.
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So there's a noisy bird following me- which is just beautiful.
Setting the tone.
There's these gorgeous sweeping trees.
And every single
duck that I have seen- that's an exaggeration... a lot of the ducks
I've seen have been asleep.
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So that is not an easy turn. Yeah I was debating whether or not to put it in
reverse and go a bit slower. Or give it more revs than go a bit
faster the more revs you get it give it the tighter the turn you can get. But I'm
more of the slow and steady kind of variety.
This time there was nothing coming I did beat my horn.
As I beeped my way down the
Llangollen, in much the same way as I beeped my way through Oxford, I felt
rather proud of my two solo journeys.
I'd manage to do all the engine checks myself though Kath talked me through
them on the phone.
I was getting more confident with other boats approaching to and being hire
boat country there were a lot of boats.
Things were beginning to look up.
The occasional lamb appeared to remind me that it was spring. The bridge numbers
began to show me that soon I'd be off the Llangollen proper.
We are coming up to bridge number one on the Llangollen canal and it's kind of where it officially
turns back into the Shropshire Union Canal but we just pretend that it's the
Llangollen all the way up to the junction. So I'm still going to continue
to say Llangollen canal even after we leave Ellesmere and you can continue
to leave comments about how its the Shropshire Union Canal.
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This is a very interesting part of the canal literally does a little horseshoe back
on itself.
And, I think
just then when I was going around the corner
just kept thinking... every time I drive I think 'can I stop
now can I stop now' kind of like what you do when you come up to a set of lights.
and
I'm always thinking what's my option for reversing.
I know it's quite shallow on either side here because I passed a few boats and
they've been jack-hammered diagonally and I
think that's because they've been caught on a bank or something.
I just would prefer today to go slow so if I have to stop which I've had to stop
a few times today then - I just stop. Our boat when you put her in reverse to
stop (the um) she likes to go diagonal she doesn't
stop straight.
So you have to put her back into forwards and do little corrections-
and then she's fine.
Oh really oh really because this is super dirty super dirty everyone's gonna
get super super dirty.
This is my moorings but there's a sign-up so I'm just gonna go check if
it's 48 hours but then on the other side of the sign I think it's two weeks, so I
think at the very least I will stop here for a couple of days because I can walk
into Ellesmere and then I know I can go and stop down the arm for two days do
some shopping and hopefully by then Kath will be back!
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Hopefully you've enjoyed today's trip down the Llangollen and hopefully you
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