Friday 6 March 2009

Farewell Coventry

0 Locks, 5 ½ Miles . Now moored at Hawkesbury Junction.

Our plan of an early start got away to a reasonable start with a visit to Sainsbury’s to restock the larder and fridge. On the way out of the basin we stopped and spoke to the crew of Ex Challenger boat Victorious who wanted to know where the nearest shop was and we invited them to tag along with us to Sainsbury’s which they did. It turned out that they reside in Watford and Kings Langley so Derek had a good old chin wag over this revelation as these are his birth place and old fishing haunt. We would have liked to chat some more but they were in a hurry to get away as they had to have the boat back to Napton by Saturday. Hopefully we will meet up with them again at some stage. They have got an end of garden mooring on the Grand Union canal and invited us to call in next time we are down that way.

Shopping aboard, we moved up to the pump out facilities which is where our plan for the day came unstuck. The pump out was dead, no power. We rang BW who arranged for an engineer who duly arrived an hour or so later. In the meantime we found that not only was the pump out facility insecure, half the padlock was missing but also the door to the main pump and electrical switch board was unlocked even though it was at the back of the Elsan room. The engineer was unable to fix the problem immediately so as we had a very full toilet tank we had no option but to do a self pump out into the Elsan.

Once this chore was completed we eventually got away just after 2pm. During our cruise we received several phone calls firstly from the engineer and then from an electrician who wanted to know if we were returning to the basin so that he could test the whole thing. As we were not returning we suggested that he speak to the owner of Nb Scallywag who we knew was also waiting to use the facilities. That was our second good deed for the day.

We would like to make a suggestion that BW put the post codes on their facility blocks as both the sub contracting engineer and electrician had no idea where to go and were relying on their Sat Nav’s to find the place. Of course when they rang us for this information we had no idea and had to go into the coffee shop to get their postcode. Where would this country be without postcodes, it’s the first thing anybody asks for but as continuous cruisers technically we don’t have one so how do you get on, in short you don’t, you have to borrow somebody else’s who is close by. We have had many occasions where we have had to ask a householder or business operator for their postcodes.

Daimler manufacturing marker on Coventry Canal

By the time we had filled the water tank at Hawkesbury junction and moved up to the 7 day moorings it was past 5pm and starting to get quite cold so it was time to call it a day.

1588 locks, 3366 miles, 57 Tunnels, 44 swing bridges and 39 lift bridges since Nov 2006

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