Damage from dropping paddles.

So today, after the previous two day's exertions I took a relatively quiet cycle ride along the Hertford Union, Lower Regents, then back up Limehouse and the Lee to complete a tour of the Fish Island circuit.

Damaged safety catch at Hertford Union Middle.

At the Hertford Union Middle Lock I spotted this damage to the safety catch. I have the word of an operative that this is caused by the action of the pawl on the wheel when the paddle is dropped, rather than lowered. Because the pawl has a bar extension to stop it falling off the wheel completely, when the wheel spins as the paddle drops, the pawl bounces over the teeth, smashing them.

This wheel was replaced last year and will need replacing again.
Don't drop paddles folks! Lower them properly, please.

At the top of the Hertford Union I fished the barrier marking the start of the closed section of towpath out of the cut.

At Limehouse I caught up with a workboat and crew working on the safety ladders on the Limehouse Cut. Because the sides of the cut are deep it would be impossible for someone who fell in to escape without these ladders, and yet still some boaters around Limehouse persist in blocking them with their boats.

I understand the desire to have something to moor to, but people fall in canals a lot. One day someone might drown because they can't get to safety and I'd hate to be moored to a safety ladder while their corpse bumps against the hull of my boat.

A safety ladder as it should be, free from obstructions for poor drowning wretches.

Less morbid stuff awaited me on the Lee.

This is a restored section of towpath next to the Crossrail substation site in Bow. The floating towpath has reopened but this section shows how nice the restored stretch will be when it is all complete. There'll even be a nice turfed stretch to shove mooring pins into, huzzah!

I finished my tour back at Old Ford Lock where a last straggler was coaxing the (supposedly closed) Elsan into accepting his two cassettes of poop, washed down with a bucket of canal water. The workboat I'd passed was tasked with putting a big padlock on the door to close the building until the refurbishment, so this may well be the last poop for a few weeks. May the refurbished hole be a little more glorious.

2 hours.

Back to the mess at Old Ford Lock

Old Ford Lock (on the Lee Navigation)

After our clean-up six weeks ago, things didn't get any better. More rubbish was left at the refuse site, outside of any bins. Some was dumped in the hopper. Then a week ago, the sanitary station was crudely vandalised, basins smashed and the Elsan plumbing ripped out and left to flood the building.

This is how we found it this morning...

BEFORE

A large group of volunteers, plus Sorwar Ahmed, Alex the new East of London Mooring Ranger, and a CRT operative turned up on site on Wednesday, with a fresh new, empty hopper, a weedboat, a van of tools and some determination.

First we had to physically wrestle the mis-aligned slides of the hopper back into place so they could be pushed open. Then while the operative and Alex took care of scooping trash from inside the lock chamber, the other volunteers began to clear all the dumped refuse from the site that our contractors would never take away. It all went in the hopper.

Then we also cleared the broken rubbish from the sanitary station. That went in the hopper too. Finally RE and CK used the London Canal Volunteer boat to chase down the last of the trash from the lock chamber.

AFTER!

This was along hard, smelly morning's work.

1 day, 4 hours.

Welcome Station, Ware

A different towpath task-force clear-up. And a welcome introduction for new volunteers for the welcome station in the lovely little Hertfordshire town of Ware.

I got there early. Ware had a little present for me behind the welcome station, yay, mouse cadaver.

Ware's a very tidy town. We did some litter picking, but aside from the area around the Priory footbridge there wasn't much that visitors had left behind. Apparently a lot of this is down to Rosie, a little old lady who regularly cleans up.

Still, we found work to do: hoeing the pathways so their edges were clear and planting some bulbs around the welcome station. Which is built to resemble the riverside gazebos rather than the famous Great Bed of Ware.

Ware welcome station.

1 day, 3 hours.

Returning Jena to Enfield, an exercise in navigation.

Getting some time at the helm of Jena after my RYA IWHC training really made clear to me how much my boat handling skills are improving. I'll admit I have been a bit ruthless with the throttle during slow manoeuvres and now I find myself gracefully getting her into the right positions with just a few judicious squirts of tick-over.

St. Pancras Lock from the stern of the workboat behind the lower stop-planks.

After the Open Weekend, Jena was now moored alongside the workboats at St Pancras lock. And doing duty as a tea room for the contractors there. We took over Jena, RE as skipper, myself, PH and, once we reached City Road, CK.

On the way to St. Pancras I'd achieved one of my boat handling goals - getting the widebeam through Islington tunnel without touching the sides. Now I'd have to do it going the other way - no such luck and as the stern brushed the rubbing strip on the tunnel wall halfway through I was a little crestfallen.

However I'll still give myself credit for reversing from St. Pancras Lock to Granary Square and executing a perfect 180 there. Jena does not steer much (if at all) in reverse.

City Road Lock, Sturts Lock, Actons Lock passed in a blur of double and treble moored boats as we hammered past them at something between one and two mph. I'd have taken pics of the narrow way left between breasted wide-beams and narrow-beams breasted wonky-donky on the towpath and wide-beams on the offside. But I was rather concentrating on not scratching any of their paintwork, although here and there what I muttered under my breath might have scorched a bit of paint to blisters.

Volunteer lock-keepers at Old Ford saw us down to the Hertford Union turn, which I again executed with aplomb, and to our mooring at Bow Wharf.

And here's that Vespa that got pulled from the Hertford Union,
resting at Bow Wharf.

Tuesday morning saw RE and myself, CK and our old friend Manolo back on Jena for the trip to Enfield.

We cleared the Hertford Union Locks fairly quickly, although RE did have to let some water down into the pound between the top and middle locks. The middle lock does seem to leak a bit. Then a quick sweep left and up the Lee.

We paused at East Wick service mooring to pump Jena out and get some water on. Also for me to go down and unwrap a couple of coal sacks and some rope from our prop. My pond-gloves really helped in the still numbingly cold water.

The pump-out was playing up a bit, giving a card error with every pre-payment card we tried. CK opened the control panel with a utility key and fished some card out from the inside where it was apparently gumming up the works. Fixed! That's something to look at next time I check on a pump-out machine.

Then, on up the Lee and the Lea on a glorious February day. Crisp, but clear with cotton-wool puff clouds. This is the reward for struggling past jammed moorings on the Regents.

At Lea Bridge we passed Virago, the enforcement boat coming the other way and lowered our boat-pole to joust with them. They declined our offer of sport and carried on towards Limehouse. We made very good time, taking advantage of the keeper controls in the powered locks - and considering coming back with some Windolene for the grimy glass in the keeper's control cabins!

In short time we were at Enfield and tied up just beyond the workboats at the CRT office there. I took a moment to take a picture of Jena, and of the workboat that's been pulled from the water there.

This workboat could use a bit of blacking.

Then, as it was such a lovely evening, RE and myself cycled the towpath back towards the Hertford Union. A beautiful ride, but muddy. My bike and I got a shower when we got home.

2 days. 9 hours.

St Pancras Lock Open Weekend

If you arrive on a cold, February morning, Granary Square steams as the fountains power up. The mist they produce is thick enough to hide people in. If you want to do 'creatures emerging from the mist' shots for anything, I'd recommend it.

Misty Moisty Granary Square

I arrived a little bit early to help prepare Jena for the day. Mostly this involved re-arranging tables and mopping up muddy wet footprints from her deck. Saturday morning was wet.

Then we trogged along the pontoon towpath and over the temporary bridge past the lock to Gas Holder park, where a number of gazebos had been set up for stall for CRT information and merchandise. After a short briefing and allocation of roles (I was to be marshal for Jena) we picked up our black hi-vis tabards and branded wooly hats.

Chunks of history lock gate.

One of the things being sold are chunks of the lower gates from Kentish Road lock - well-aged oak, laser branded with the CRT logo. Very nice, if you like a bit of canalia with character.

'Compass' signage at York Road steps.

Less popular, with some people, are the 'compass' signage installed at Kings Cross. These signs give an estimate of the time it takes to walk or cycle one spot on the towpath to the next. Unfortunately, some people think that these might represent targets to beat for cyclists. The times given are actually quite generous, approximating to 10kph for cycling, which I don't feel is too fast an average pace.

I spent most of Saturday on Jena. Despite the wet weather the activity aboard (building and decorating CRT branded bird boxes) was incredibly popular with the kids. A few times we had to restrict people from coming aboard as we reached Jena's safe capacity. That day we had over 250 visitors to Jena alone. For the entire event that day we counted over 2000!

Sunday was dryer, but colder.

Jena, but not where I expected.

I arrived even earlier to set up Jena, to be slightly bamboozled to find her the other side of the canal from where we'd left her. It turned out that in the early evening, after the event had wound up for the day, someone stepped into the gap between Jena and the towpath. We'd moored her at a slightly awkward angle to make it easier for the public to use Jena's access ramp - and we'd left quite a space between her stern and bows by the towpath. That wasn't a problem in the daytime, but after dark the space could be mistaken for a patch of grass. So, once the person had been safely extracted from the canal, Jena had been gently pushed across to the (non-public) offside and pinned up there.

I spent a couple of minutes with Tom Oliver, just gently poling her back into position for the daytime.

My viewpoint for the morning.

The Water Tower

Pride of Slough

This day I'd been allocated a different task - marshalling people across from St. Pancras Lock, down some unevenly spaced steps, and towards the water tower at St Pancras Cruising Club.

This gave me time to gaze into the lock and listen to the engineered music derived from hydrophone recordings of the lock being emptied and refilled - a sort of haunting noise reminiscent of whale-song.  I also practised a half dozen different ways of saying "Hello, this way to the water Tower - please be careful of the uneven steps as you go down." So I didn't sound entirely like a broken record.

Famous on YouTube!

Visitor numbers were a little down from Saturday it seemed like the cold was deterring some people, but it didn't prevent a few Youtube VIPs from making their way into the lock to visit: ladies and gentleman, I give you Tom Scott, Chris Joel, Gary Brannan and the lovely Matt Gray - the Technical Difficulties!

2 days, 12 hours.