Cruising Into London

Rachael's birthday! It has been three years since we did this trip last and the changes we have noticed so far are firstly the distinct lack of moving boats and scondly the greatly increased number of moored boats in 14 day moorings. The boat all prepped, we headed off down the Paddington Arm to our mooring in Little Venice, a four hour cruise...normally! I don't know when boats were able to go all the way down this arm at 3 to 4mph last! The arm is not too bad to start off with but the last few miles are painful as you move past so many moored boats, most on 14 day moorings. Just to make things a little more tiresome, the last few miles the canal was covered in weed. The prop required clearing regularly, not down the weed hatch thankfully, just a good burst of reverse.

Some of the sights we saw along the way and on the way back. This garden (below) had a pictorial list of English Monarchs in chronological order.

 Lots of moored boats!

The big red doubledecker!

Spiderman looking after the neighbourhood.

Cutting a course for the boat behind.

Under Abbey Road...for Beatles fans.

The view of Little Venice Basin from the bridge at the Paddington Arm entrance. The weed was pretty bad.

Serafina on the mooring. I thought for our £10/night CRaT may have installed an electric and water post, no such luck! The Rembrandt Gardens moorings in Little Venice, less than ten minutes walk from Paddington Tube Station, are well shaded so over the week I had to make a few dashes back to the boat to run the engine to charge the batteries.

Our first night, a get together with friends for Rachael's birthday. Plenty of room for tables and chairs beside the boat!

The mooring worked out well apart from the regular afternoon pot smokers that gathered at the dead end along the path, several times staying until the early hours. That stopped after the weekend so they may have got the move-on!