Friday, July 22, 2016

A day by the lake

After NB Adagio had left, were were alone here. There's another boat behind us, but there's no-one there, so we have the whole stretch to ourselves. The footpath is well used, though, with lots of cyclists and walkers passing with some regularity, but there's little disturbance. 

Few boats have passed, too, but we did have one "craft" pass us which you don't see often. A couple of miles back down the canal, we passed a floating pontoon being constructed at the side of the canal. A huge section of it was being craned over tall trees and onto the canal, to be attached to what was already there. Thankfully, the crane operator waited for us to pass.
Today, much to our surprise, the finished article floated up behind us.





The young men were pulling it - yes, manually! - from where it had been constructed to the site of a new marina half a mile or so ahead of us.

There's a lot of house construction going on there, and there is no room for the crane that's needed to put these floating pontoons together, so they've chosen the nearest possible place to do the job, and the pontoons have to be towed to their final resting place. On this occasion, the towing-boat hadn't arrived, so these guys had been commissioned to tug the thing. Not an enviable job.

Some hours later, they went by again, this time riding the pontoon as it was being towed by the boat.

We've not been idle during our stay here. Last night, apart from cooking a superb curry for supper, Grace made a large jarful of hummus, and an apple cake. Today, she's been castle-painting. I tightened the stern gland, hoping to slow the drip there, and did a number of engine checks and cleaning. The sun's not been out much today, though it's been very warm, so the solar panels have been challenged in their production of electricity - they're old, and not as efficient as newer units - so we've had to run the engine for a couple of hours. 

It's lovely here, but it'll be good to move on, to see new places and new things.

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