Rachael Staying on for a Wild Ride on Serafina

Last blog entry we were sick of swing bridges...we still are! This blog Rachael and I have had enough of staircase locks too!

Crossflatts is a quiet little village, I could see no more than a dozen houses although they seem to have no problems fielding a local soccer/football team. These guys were busy across the canal on the playing field until about 8:30ish.

When we cruised off in the morning around 9:30 we were only 15 minutes away from the Bingley Five Rise. Our time couldn't have been any better, there was a boat coming up in the top lock and the lock keeper gave us the nod, we were the next to go once the locks were set. Rachael popped out of the boat with her windlass and managed to watch Serafina and I as we passed down the staircase; there we plenty of volunteers operating the locks.

CART Facilities Block and shop at the top of the Bingley Five Rise

Top of the Bingley Five Rise before it is reset for us to go down

Looking back, one down, four to go!

Volunteers also helped us through the next swing bridge and the following three-rise locks, the last before we cruised through Bingley. I'd hate to think how long it would have taken to negotiate the five-rise and three-rise by ourselves, not too many boats on The Leeds and Liverpool to share double locks with!

It has been interesting doing the swing bridges with so many combinations of operating gear on them, you never really knew what you were going to get from one bridge to the next. It has also been similar with the locks, something a little bit different, this time note the gate paddle.

 And this one...

Rachael was at the helm for Lock 19 and got the fright of her life. The last boater had left one of the top ground paddles open, it was one of those box type paddles, not obviously open and I only gave it a glance. We were just happy that the lock was full, so in she went. I let the water go and it emptied quickly enough despite the open top paddle but when the water level got to the ground paddle outlet Serafina was pushed by the wash rather quickly across the lock and smashed into the far wall, Rachael did everything she could not to fall off the stern. I think that must have really shaken her up because exiting the lock she turned too early and caught the tiller on the lock gate that hadn't housed properly. Serafina now has a bent folding brass tiller arm, the swan neck has been shifted off centre from the rudder and bent approx 15 degrees off centre. It has taken a little to get used to but it will get us to a boat yard in fact it would probably get us back to Stoke with a little discomfort for the helmsman steering and ultimately in the hip pocket!

We planned to moor in Saltaire overnight and have a look around but the moorings were for six hours only. Additionally, lock keeper advice was to at least get to Apperley Bridge before mooring. We knocked over another two-rise staircase, on the way to our mooring, with a little help from a really keen young fellow who could only speak the odd word of english. The words we could pick up were 'help?' and afterwards 'pay'; seems he was a Czech local. We moored for the night above the next two rise, this area was very busy with walkers, riders and wandering teenagers. After mooring under a tree at Crossflatts, I spent a nice evening cleaning all the bird poo off the bow of the boat, that took a good hour!

We set off on Thursday not really sure where we were going to finish the day but first stop was the CART moorings two minutes away to pick up some water. We only spent ten minutes on the water point when Mike and Jane in NB Gamnel Princess happened along, we finally found another boat to do some locks with! Mike and Rachael set the two rise locks while I packed up the hose ready to go into the lock. Our deisel was down to a quarter tank and I was keen to stop at the Apperley Bridge Marina to fill up, no such luck, Thursday is their day off, it was closed.

The next two three-rise staircases had volunteer lock keepers on them helping out. It took a little while to get down both of them following a broad beam down. We were queued at the first lock mainly because a boater managed to nearly tip his boat over. I'm not sure why he tied up his boat to the mooring bollard when he wasn't helping do the locks anyway. After all the lock paddles were shut down it took four of us to release the boat. That was rather than lose water from the lock.

With things running well for us and no suitable moorings we continued on into Leeds mooring up on Granary Wharf.

I was a little skeptical at first surrounded by pubs, bars and restaurants but last night we slept well, we will have to see how Friday night (tonight) goes, although it doesn't look that busy.