Locks and Misdirection

Locks and Misdirection

Hiked into town and saw a canal boat negotiate a lock, very helpful to watch. Noticed they had a handle to crank gates open and closed or up and down, where was our handle. Need to figure that out before we set out.

We're very successful at finding a coffee wifi house, Jericho Cafe, they even had soy, got my vote.  Our dream location would be wifi, soy latte and beer.... Don't think that will happen.  There is always hope.

So we put it off as long as possible, 4:00 in the afternoon, time to go. After some futsing around we casted off and started putting to an unknown location up river.  Cows were running across the pasture bowling over picnicking students, just to  come say  farewell and the sun was shinning as we putted north. I can dare say I have never seen cows run before, there was one in the back that was really putting on the gas.   As we scanned the horizon,(pasture in this case) we could see Wolvercote, that is where we would end up tonight.

We had a plan, Gale in the bow, Kirk in the drivers seat. Now what is funny is that the driver can not see the 70 feet ahead to see if another boat is coming, so when you went around corners it was nice for the bow person to give a heads up.  I did it most of the time. Oh yea, did I forget to mention that they do not drive on the wrong side of the canals! Oops! Had a moment of in  decision but Kirk got it right, yes I mean right side of the canal.  Lots of S curves in this part of the canal, got to keep a watch out. 

Now we approached our first lock. Looks pretty good, a little cross wind, boat coming out of lock, no problem, gate keeper waving arms, hum, wonder why.  Ok so there is gate etiquette, we get up there and she says that we were suppose to pull directly in, ok so we do, then she tells us how to do everything which was very lucky seeing that it was our first lock and this would benefit us when we tried to do it alone. Although it was embarrassing we like having gate keepers . We are pretty seasoned now after   3 locks, but having a gate keeper is nice!  We also got the hand signals down. 

It is really nice when you come to a intersection that you know which way you want to go before you enter it and do not change your mind 3 times, a 70 foot boat takes a lot of time to change directions in a narrow canal. I thought we  could go up the canal the next day. Kirk was thinking that it would be good to go south because the Plough Pub was down there. Horse headed to the barn syndrome. If we did that we would have to go to Oxford to turn around. So we enter the cut, I told him to go north, then he decided in the middle of the turn to go south, then I said no we should go north and walk to pub. Well by this time, yes yelling across a 70 foot boat we ended up cross wise  in the canal. So we compromised, we tried to back down the canal the canal headed for Oxford, let me tell you right  now, narrow boats DO NOT back especially when there is wind. We stuck it in one bank and then the other.  We ended up taking the lines and pulling the boat along another narrow boat, (thank god the owners were not there)  I was walking on the edge of both boats, straddled between boats, trying to fend off other boat to pull us around, not a good idea on a 3 inch rail, Kirk on the bank pulling boat back, to bad no one was there with a camera, but no water time yet!  We staked it to the bank for the night. Yea I said stake as in tent stakes.  And took off for The Plough, Kirk needs a beer! I need an insanity check! 

Like Kirk says we go from one oops to the next, and having a lot of fun doing it. Not dumb American, more like silly American!