Is the wait over?

 Feb 25th. Day 40

The last two days have felt more like the start of Spring, warm and sunny and ideal cruising conditions...now if only we could actually leave and get on our way! 

Yesterday we had the first of the three Rabies vaccinations required for the South African trip in April. Well, I say required, It's not strictly a necessary requirement, but one would be a fool to forgo this vaccination. The vaccine is not available on the NHS so we had to go to a pharmacy to pay the exorbitant cost of the injections. At £75 per injection, I'm sure you can work out how much it has cost the pair of us to have all three each. And then there is the malaria tablets to take for 41 days. We start when we land in Johannesburg, a tablet every day during our 34 days away, and continue for a week after our return. At £1.30 a tablet...well, you can do the maths again! Still, this is a safari holiday which has been on our bucket list for years and well worth paying out for! 

Every morning, the first thing we do was check the river levels. Finally, the Trent was on the way down. This afternoon it reached 1.52m and a planned walk to Derwent Mouth lock to check on the gauge was set for tomorrow. But when a boat suddenly appeared, I rushed out to see if they had come off the river. They had, and assured us the gauge was in amber. This was too good an opportunity to miss, even though the afternoon was getting on. Tiller was put on, TV aerial taken down and all was going well until we tried to put the satellite aerial down. That refused to go, and no amount of pushing the button and wiggling the Snipe receiver made any difference. In the end, Ian had to remove it from its fixings, so there was quite a delay in actually getting away. 

 

 

Anyway, we did set off, I was at the helm while Ian was at the bow assembling the anchor. Better to be safe than sorry, especially on a river like the Trent. Our life jackets at the ready too.

 

I was so disappointed to arrive at the lock to see the boards still showing red. I had noticed the red river light was still on as I went through the floodgates, but often the environment agency forget to turn it off, so I didn't take much notice. 

 

 

Why that boater told us it was on amber, I will never know, except just maybe at Sawley the boards show a different reading to here. Anyway, the river is still dropping, so our plan is to go early tomorrow morning come what may!