Falling in the Cut!!

They say your not a proper boater till you have fallen in, but more of that later.

The day started well. We had been moored up at Ashton-Under-Lyne and we got a reasonably early start and turned right up the Huddersfield Narrow canal. Everything was going swimmingly (ha ha), until we met a boat coming the other way just after lock 9W (where the sewage filter beds are) went to go out the next lock and of course not much water because he'd used a lock full and we had used a lock full. We kept getting stuck on the bottom and this is when I made my big discovery a bicycle in the canal, Ken fished it out and I fell in, so he fished me out as well - now I am a 'Proper Boater'.

Met another boat stuck on the bottom just out of lock 18W. Helped him to get underway and with the aid of the centre rope managed to pull ourselves into the lock. Filled the lock and low and behold, there was a puddle the other side!!!!!!!!!!!! to make matters worse the paddles were leaking so badly that it slowly lowered us back down again. So we reversed out of the lock and are spending the night grounded in the middle of the cut. A nice man at BW said that things should have sorted themselves out by morning.

It is at present raining, but really I would like a torrential downpour!!

Our original plan to make this trip via the tidal Trent, seems right now to be a very wise plan (which of course we changed at the last minute, as you do).