Day ten

Never before have we stayed in one place for so long. The Environment Agency officially opened the river to navigation at 2 pm today. Several boats had already come up stream. One sailor boat owner told me he had come over from France entering from the Wash, passing Wisbech and Peterborough. I pointed out that the river was still closed to traffic. “No Strong Stream Advice is going to stop me after coming across the channel”.
Later a narrowboat coming down stream had hit a bridge and smashed up the front of his boat. The cratch and cover destroyed. And still they come from far and wide muttering about low bridges. Many coming from Denford which is 14 locks and 23 miles away! Why do they do it? “Got to get back to work” they said. Oh was it worth it.
The river inspector came to see us again, this time delivering containers of water which we poured into our tank. We told him that we could not move yet because we had a problem with the gear box. Since then I discovered how to remove the cable and found that the gear box worked ok. Somehow it is the cable that needs adjusting. We wait for the engineer to be sure it is all working ok before moving on.
That evening a boat went by in the darkness at about 10 o’clock. When we went out later with Molly we discovered that the lazy boaters had left the gates open and guillotine up. This is not the correct procedure. All locks on this river should be left with the guillotine up thus providing a safe haven for those who may be coming up against a strong stream. Just wondering how many other locks have been set wrong.