The Fenland Wayter14th July 2016:
NOTE: If you aim to navigate these waterways, Imray's book "The Fenland Waterways" is a good place to start, the most useful part being the pull out map in the back. Also for the more technologically advanced, the "Waternav" Android app, East, covers all the Fens, Great Ouse and Cam, and the Nene as far as Northampton. This offers more detail, plus GPS tracking. I found it useful to have the app on for a more detailed view, and to use the map for a wider view of the area.
My first proper journey in the boat - heading off across the Fens on the Middle Levels. I am on my own this time, and have not encountered a lock and had to do everything alone yet. As I was going to go through the tidal Salters Lode lock onto the Great Ouse, and then down through the Denver Sluice, I had to ring up the lock keeper at least 24 hours in advance to book a passage and check the tide times. I arranged for passage late the following evening, and then spent most of the morning fussing about on the boat at Bill Fen Marina, sorting out all the silly little things that I was worried about on board, and some important ones, like emptying the toilet tank and topping up with water, before finally leaving the mooring at noon. I took it easy and aimed for March, not too far away. On the way, I encountered several weed cutting boats. Some had sharpened propellers that span and cut the weeds, which propagate all across the channels, others had long hedge cutter type attachments for getting down deeper. There was a third type with a mesh in the front to lift out all the plant matter and dump it on the side. One of these machines had suffered a hydraulic failure and leaked a lot of oil into the channel - the multi-coloured haze was visible on the surface for a couple of miles.
There was also a lot of wildlife - swans and cygnets, Great Crested Grebes, and a Kingfisher, along with all the coots and moorhens. I managed a decent, but slightly blurred pic of the Kingfisher. Have to use an f 2.8 lens next time! I arrived on the outskirts at 3pm, and went in to Fox Narrowboats to fill up with diesel, as there would be nowhere else to refuel until I was across the Fens and on the Great Ouse. This accomplished, I ran on slowly to the Town Quay, passing a lot of pairs of collared doves, a bird that used to be very common in Bournemouth, but has been driven out by the more competitive wood pigeon. It was nice to see them after so long. Eventually, ticking over past a mile or so of private moorings, I arrived at the Quay where there were a few vacant moorings, and I tied up for the rest of the day. I needed to print off a very large document, and fortunately March Library was just a short walk across the quay and over the road, so I joined and printed off what I needed, reading it on the boat that evening.
15th July 2016: I wasn't in a hurry this morning, and took my time, setting up a hot drink in an insulated cup and some snacks on the cockpit roof, and leaving at 10:00am. The waterway I am on at this point is the old course of the River Nene, and is linked at the West end to the Whittlesey Dyke, and the East to Well Creek. Various other waterways cross it, with such intriguing names as Bevill's Leam, Popham's Eau, and the Forty Foot and Sixteen Foot Drains. This series of waterways is actually mostly man-made, with some of the ditches cut by the Romans, and others by the great Dutch engineer Vermuyden, who was called in to help drain this huge section of land that was around sea level and mostly swamp. He was knighted in 1629 for his work and became an English citizen in 1633. As a result of the flatness, there is only one lock between Whittlesey and Salters Lode. I was unaware that this lock required booking too, but fortunately I arrived there just as another boat was passing through - surprisingly this was another Sea Otter, a dinky little 22' Narrowboat called "English Rose." We chatted for a while, and ran along together for a bit, after which he took off as he had an important appointment at the fish and chip shop in Upwell!
I chugged on through Upwell and Outwell, under some very low bridges and past a beautiful church, the waterway getting narrower and narrower and slower and slower going. There were a lot of interesting buildings - old chapels, shops and cottages alongside the waterway, but no time to stop, so I kept going, eventually passing the moored "English Rose," safely at his fish and chip shop, and entering the extremely narrow, shallow, slow and weed infested Well Creek. This was hard going. I couldn't imagine how a deeper wider boat would manage there at all but have since been amazed to see a 60' widebeam making its way through there. I had to keep on stopping and running in reverse to shake the weeds off my propeller. Finally it opened out a bit at Nordelph, and the going got easier as I ran down to Salters Lode, moored up and had a well earned meal, around 1:50pm.
With at least 2 hours to go until the lock passage, I wandered around with the big camera and took some photos. Moored just to the West of Salters Lode lock, it is possible to walk a short distance and see the "Old Bedford River," which is supposedly navigable according to the map, but judging by the overgrown state of the river and the proliferation of weeds, it looked as though a boat had not passed that way in a long time, and would take a braver man than I to try! There are also some very low bridges that way, and few moorings.
"English Rose" eventually arrived, and we chatted for half an hour or so before the lock keeper suggested entering the lock at around 3:45pm. Once we were in it was a matter of waiting for the tide to rise enough for us to be able to get out on the other side. A few minutes later it started drizzling. There wasn't enough headroom in the lock to put the canopy up, so I put my waterproof on. The lock keeper told us that there wasn't a lot of water on the tide, and high water was 5pm, so we might have to wait a while. He told us of the floods the previous year, when the water was 30 feet higher than it was today, and he was worried about his house flooding, and navigation on the river would have been tantamount to suicide! Not so today... we waited and waited. Eventually he opened the outer gate, to reveal a muddy creek with no water in it. We watched as the water slowly rose inch by inch, worried that there may not be enough depth to get out of the lock, but finally, English Rose was able to nudge her way out of the lock and onto the river, waved his goodbyes and told me he was headed for Ely tonight!10 minutes later, I was moving too, although I got stuck a couple of times and had to wait another 5 minutes to float off. The rain never set in, fortunately, and after a 5 minute dash down the tidal "Great Ouse", the manned Denver lock was a quick passage because of the low state of the tide, allowing me out onto the "Ten Mile River" and down to the Environment Agency (EA) moorings a couple of miles downstream, where I tied up for the evening approaching 5pm, very tired, and grateful for a hot shower before an early night.
NOTE: If you aim to navigate these waterways, Imray's book "The Fenland Waterways" is a good place to start, the most useful part being the pull out map in the back. Also for the more technologically advanced, the "Waternav" Android app, East, covers all the Fens, Great Ouse and Cam, and the Nene as far as Northampton. This offers more detail, plus GPS tracking. I found it useful to have the app on for a more detailed view, and to use the map for a wider view of the area.
My first proper journey in the boat - heading off across the Fens on the Middle Levels. I am on my own this time, and have not encountered a lock and had to do everything alone yet. As I was going to go through the tidal Salters Lode lock onto the Great Ouse, and then down through the Denver Sluice, I had to ring up the lock keeper at least 24 hours in advance to book a passage and check the tide times. I arranged for passage late the following evening, and then spent most of the morning fussing about on the boat at Bill Fen Marina, sorting out all the silly little things that I was worried about on board, and some important ones, like emptying the toilet tank and topping up with water, before finally leaving the mooring at noon. I took it easy and aimed for March, not too far away. On the way, I encountered several weed cutting boats. Some had sharpened propellers that span and cut the weeds, which propagate all across the channels, others had long hedge cutter type attachments for getting down deeper. There was a third type with a mesh in the front to lift out all the plant matter and dump it on the side. One of these machines had suffered a hydraulic failure and leaked a lot of oil into the channel - the multi-coloured haze was visible on the surface for a couple of miles.
There was also a lot of wildlife - swans and cygnets, Great Crested Grebes, and a Kingfisher, along with all the coots and moorhens. I managed a decent, but slightly blurred pic of the Kingfisher. Have to use an f 2.8 lens next time! I arrived on the outskirts at 3pm, and went in to Fox Narrowboats to fill up with diesel, as there would be nowhere else to refuel until I was across the Fens and on the Great Ouse. This accomplished, I ran on slowly to the Town Quay, passing a lot of pairs of collared doves, a bird that used to be very common in Bournemouth, but has been driven out by the more competitive wood pigeon. It was nice to see them after so long. Eventually, ticking over past a mile or so of private moorings, I arrived at the Quay where there were a few vacant moorings, and I tied up for the rest of the day. I needed to print off a very large document, and fortunately March Library was just a short walk across the quay and over the road, so I joined and printed off what I needed, reading it on the boat that evening.
15th July 2016: I wasn't in a hurry this morning, and took my time, setting up a hot drink in an insulated cup and some snacks on the cockpit roof, and leaving at 10:00am. The waterway I am on at this point is the old course of the River Nene, and is linked at the West end to the Whittlesey Dyke, and the East to Well Creek. Various other waterways cross it, with such intriguing names as Bevill's Leam, Popham's Eau, and the Forty Foot and Sixteen Foot Drains. This series of waterways is actually mostly man-made, with some of the ditches cut by the Romans, and others by the great Dutch engineer Vermuyden, who was called in to help drain this huge section of land that was around sea level and mostly swamp. He was knighted in 1629 for his work and became an English citizen in 1633. As a result of the flatness, there is only one lock between Whittlesey and Salters Lode. I was unaware that this lock required booking too, but fortunately I arrived there just as another boat was passing through - surprisingly this was another Sea Otter, a dinky little 22' Narrowboat called "English Rose." We chatted for a while, and ran along together for a bit, after which he took off as he had an important appointment at the fish and chip shop in Upwell!
I chugged on through Upwell and Outwell, under some very low bridges and past a beautiful church, the waterway getting narrower and narrower and slower and slower going. There were a lot of interesting buildings - old chapels, shops and cottages alongside the waterway, but no time to stop, so I kept going, eventually passing the moored "English Rose," safely at his fish and chip shop, and entering the extremely narrow, shallow, slow and weed infested Well Creek. This was hard going. I couldn't imagine how a deeper wider boat would manage there at all but have since been amazed to see a 60' widebeam making its way through there. I had to keep on stopping and running in reverse to shake the weeds off my propeller. Finally it opened out a bit at Nordelph, and the going got easier as I ran down to Salters Lode, moored up and had a well earned meal, around 1:50pm.
With at least 2 hours to go until the lock passage, I wandered around with the big camera and took some photos. Moored just to the West of Salters Lode lock, it is possible to walk a short distance and see the "Old Bedford River," which is supposedly navigable according to the map, but judging by the overgrown state of the river and the proliferation of weeds, it looked as though a boat had not passed that way in a long time, and would take a braver man than I to try! There are also some very low bridges that way, and few moorings.
"English Rose" eventually arrived, and we chatted for half an hour or so before the lock keeper suggested entering the lock at around 3:45pm. Once we were in it was a matter of waiting for the tide to rise enough for us to be able to get out on the other side. A few minutes later it started drizzling. There wasn't enough headroom in the lock to put the canopy up, so I put my waterproof on. The lock keeper told us that there wasn't a lot of water on the tide, and high water was 5pm, so we might have to wait a while. He told us of the floods the previous year, when the water was 30 feet higher than it was today, and he was worried about his house flooding, and navigation on the river would have been tantamount to suicide! Not so today... we waited and waited. Eventually he opened the outer gate, to reveal a muddy creek with no water in it. We watched as the water slowly rose inch by inch, worried that there may not be enough depth to get out of the lock, but finally, English Rose was able to nudge her way out of the lock and onto the river, waved his goodbyes and told me he was headed for Ely tonight!10 minutes later, I was moving too, although I got stuck a couple of times and had to wait another 5 minutes to float off. The rain never set in, fortunately, and after a 5 minute dash down the tidal "Great Ouse", the manned Denver lock was a quick passage because of the low state of the tide, allowing me out onto the "Ten Mile River" and down to the Environment Agency (EA) moorings a couple of miles downstream, where I tied up for the evening approaching 5pm, very tired, and grateful for a hot shower before an early night.
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