Top of the Lea

We gathered this morning, at Enfield, to take Jena out for her first cruise of the year. Sorwar Ahmed and his trusty crew of mooring measurers were to come with, on a journey up river towards Hertford. Among them was G, the latest mooring ranger recruit for the West of London. Nice chap.

But the river had other ideas. It was frosted hard with ice up to an inch thick. And although some of us were keen to smash on through, heads more wise to the complaints that might be generated by a widebeam CRT boat smashing ice past the moored GRP hulls of the cruising clubs of the Upper Lea advised extreme caution.

Sunken boat above Enfield.

Indeed one well respected chap swore blind that the boat above had been victim of an ice sheet cruelly spearing through its hull, although some others denied that was the case.

Caution won out.

RE, CK and I got on our bikes and cycled for Hertford instead, leaving Sorwar to walk his crew behind.

The birds don't much like the ice either.

Ice appeared and disappeared as we headed North. In some places over an inch thick, but in others, where there was flowing water, the river was entirely free. Some boaters were struggling through the conditions, others, were very much staying put.

At Fieldes Lock the Elsan was in a sorry state, working, but with a pile of boater rubbish against the side. There just aren't enough bins for boaters it seems, and no peripatetic rubbish collecting boaty entrepreneurs in the East either!

Around the corner (above the lock) was even worse, several vans full of fly-tipped rubbish!

I took photos and reported it all when I got home.

We made it to Hertford and had a quick lunch before RE and CK got on the train back to the smoke. I frugally cycled back to Broxbourne where my Oyster card would once again be valid.

On the way back I shot a giant.

Time (actually doing volunteer stuff rather than larking around on the navigation): about 2 hours.