Wet and miserable.

Still moored at Stretham pumping station, Old West River

It appears that we were very lucky yesterday to have got through Hermitage lock when we did as Kalimera, who passed through Hermitage after us only cleared the bridge by a couple of millimetres. Derek and Christina were told by the lock keeper that had we left it another 30 minutes we would not have been so lucky.We had some heavy rain again overnight but the river level here appears unchanged which is a blessing.

On our travels yesterday our electrical system was giving me cause for concern as warning lights were going on and off unaccountably. After checking the system over and speaking to the technical support people at Sterling Electrical I decided to call out the engineer who replaced the alternator last week. As the alternator was under warranty I didn't want to jeopardise the warranty if it needed replacing.

The engineer did find a minor fault so took the alternator back to the workshop for further tests. When he returned he told me that he had taken 1 wire off which wasn't necessary and made 1 adjustment. After refitting the alternator  and running the engine everything seemed to be OK so he left with another £80 in his pocket. After leaving the engine running for about an hour the light on the dash panel came on again. After checking on what was happening on the battery management system I rang Sterling back and they told me that the problem of the dash light coming on could be caused by any of numerous factors none of which were a problem. It could be just the fact of a new alternator working with an old one setting up a resistance somewhere in the system making the dash light come on. So we will have to closely monitor the system for a while to see if it settles down after a bit of use. By the time all of this was finished it was too late to move so we opted to stay here overnight and if the weather improves we will move on to Ely tomorrow where we can catch up with Narrowboats No Problem and Moore 2 Life.

1168 locks, 1645 miles, 41 Tunnels, 41 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006