Onwards and Upwards.

Tuesday 31st July 2012.
Cosgrove to Stoke Bruerne.
7 Miles 8 Locks.

I worked through Cosgrove lock on my own this morning letting Jayne save her energy for the Stoke Bruerne Flight which will raise us 56 feet later on in the morning, a boat had gone up about ten minutes before and left one of the top gates open which slowed things down a bit, but the rain was holding off.

Two hours later and we were at the service point at the bottom of the Stoke locks, there were three boats already on the landing stage, the boat furthest from the lock was being washed, yes, washed on the water point, fortunately there are four or five taps along there, the next boat was a hireboat filling with water, then came a broadbeam boat. After securing No Direction I noticed that the man from the broadbeam boat was emptying a large plastic container at the sanitary station, he then carried the empty container back to his boat, I realised then that he had a self pumpout kit and was slowly pumping the contents of his toilet holding tank into the plastic container and emptying it at the sanitary point, to say that he was creating a pong doesn't cover it, Jayne was busy spraying fresh air around, I think his pump out machine broke down because he cleared off, but not before giving the device a good wash out in the canal !! 

Our water tank was full and I was just rolling the hose up when two young lads from the hireboat walked past towards the first lock with their windlasses, sharing seven double locks with a hireboat and a fit young crew is not to be missed so the hose got stowed quickly and into the lock we went.

We completed the flight without a problem, considering the steerer of the hireboat was a first timer he handled the boat well, even managing to keep it to one side in the lock while we went in.

We're now at Stoke Bruerne for two days as tomorrow is Jayne's birthday, so a small celebration with friends in the Navigation is planned.