Weather 1 Boater 0.

The forecast I had on the App on my phone said rain early, dry later, but it looked ok so I set off just before 10am, first stop was the water point and having got sorted another boat pulled onto the second water point in front of me so I walked along and had a chat while our tanks filled, he was going my way and said that wind and rain was due about midday, he was only going as far as Handsacre while I wanted to go on to Rugeley another hour or so further on, anyway he finished before me and I went and opened the swingbridge for another boat heading in the same direction and then held it for him as well so I had two boats ahead of me so it would be follow the leader through the three locks today.

I timed my departure about right and reached the lock landing just as he was entering the lock, I locked him through and then went through myself, I had a bit of a struggle getting into the lock because of strong winds, I could not get off the lock landing and kept getting blown back against the bank but eventually I succeeded and when I approached the second lock he was just leaving it.

Shade House Lock (19)

At the third lock he was just entering as I approached

A boat was also waiting to come down so I walked up and chatted to the young man on the other one, he and his girl had bought their boat 3 weeks ago and were moving it down to Birmingham at weekends, they had a residential mooring there. I helped with the lock and then walked to my boat to prepare to move in after they came out, and that’s when the day started to go wrong, for them not me, they were moving out of the lock extremely slowly and I thought it was just because they were new to it all and being cautious, but instead of passing me they began to pull to the bank in front of me, so I asked what they were doing and they had lost drive to the prop, the engine was running ok, but no propulsion, I couldn’t help and they said it had happened before and if they left it a few hours it would be ok again, so I wished them well and headed off through the lock.

Passing through Ravenshaw Woods

 then Kings Bromley Wharf

And then Kings Bromley Marina, 

I had looked at a few boats there during my search for my boat.

On into Handsacre

The weather still looked ok until I had past the moorings and then the wind and rain started, passing Amitage with the sanitaryware works , no photos now as it was too windy and wet, my brolly decided to blow inside out and it was a bit of a struggle to get it back the right way again!

Bridge 61a is the start of the narrow section that was a tunnel until they took the roof off and the signposts tell you to send a crew member ahead as you cannot see the other end, so not having a crew member to send it was with trepidation I began to enter, breathing a sigh of relief as I rounded a curve and saw it was clear all the way, at this point the rain had stopped so the camera came back out.

Armitage narrows, happily clear.

This chap has been photographed thousands of times, I had too.

Spode House and Hawkesbury Priory

Now the weather really worsened and I was glad to reach Rugely, until I stopped, I had a real struggle getting moored with the wind blowing the boat out and a passing boat didn’t help as he failed to slow at all dragging the boat as well, but in the wind and rain I eventually got it tied up safely just after bridge 66

Today I thought I’d pop to the shops which the map showed were close by and as I walked up onto the bridge road Tesco was right there, I was almost in the car park.

Totals: 8 miles : 3 locks : 1 swing bridge