Rescued by Ashtree boat club.

Before I tell the tale I must first say we have had to change our plans. We had a phone call from Kev this morning to say that mum and baby wont be coming home for at least 5 days. Seems baby has some sort of infection and is now on antibiotics. I do feel for Christine because she was desperate to get baby home but hospital is the right place for him to be at the moment. This means we will delay our departure until both are safely home. In view of this we decided water was on top of our priority list as both of us were starting to smell a bit ripe. The dog almost had to resort to drinking canal water, we were getting so low. And as for clean boating clothes we ran out a day or two ago. We would have looked a bit strange wandering about in our Sunday best. We made the big mistake of waiting for the rain to stop first before setting off. Seems everyone else had the same idea because by the time we were ready to go 4 boats had already passed us! The inevitable lock queues held us up, first at Tatenhill Lock with the four boats were still waiting to ascend. Turns out a day boat had got himself stuck on the far side and everyone had to wait until he had sorted himself out. Then again at Barton Lock. Instead of going through the lock, winding, and then watering up we thought we would water up first. A steady stream of boats kept coming so we still ended up queuing once we had finished.

Tatenhill Lock and still they come.

At Barton Turns Marina I gave the helm over to Ian. No way was I going to wind the boat as this is where I got myself wedged a couple of weeks ago and was not keen on a repeat performance.  Of course Ian showed me exactly how it was done by doing it perfectly as you can see.

So now for my tale. We once more had to queue at all the locks on the way back and I had a horrible feeling all the moorings at Branston would be gone. Coming round the bend my fears proved correct as all we could see was wall to wall boats.. As we pulled level with the park entrance a boater asked if we were looking for a mooring as they were about to leave. I had the helm and slung the boat into reverse. Ian was standing on the gunwale and it's a bl**dy good job he wasn't right next to me because suddenly the tiller flew to the right with such a force that Ian would most definatly have been thrown over the side. Then the engine stalled!! At first we were unsure what had happened until someone shouted our rope was hanging in the water. Then it hit us. The rope was round the prop. Somehow we were heading forward instead of reverse and with no means of propelsion was powerless to do anything. Thats when those in the moored boats came running out. Turns out they were from Ashtree boat club on their Spring Bank holiday jaunt. Not only did they manage to grab the front rope which I had abysmally tried to throw at them and had all knotted, but they stopped us from colliding with other moored boats and pulled us into a vacant mooring. There they helped to secure the boat and even hung onto it while Ian tried to find a spare rope sort out the stern end. Then it was a question of how do we get the rope off of the prop.

Rope disappearing into the depths

 There was nothing for it but roll up the sleeves, get head and arm as far down as possible and see what could be done. When Ian popped his head up and said it was wedged solid, I had visions of being towed to the nearest dry dock to take the boat out of water. Ian never gives up though, and with a momentous effort and lots of cussing, managed to bring the rope back up. Now it's a question of  hoping that no damage has been done. That we will only find out when we get going again!

All the boats from Ashtree boat club.