Monday 28th July

We set off today at midday - it was still very warm despite our storm last night but luckily there was a breeze on the river.


Today was our day of good deeds. First of all we needed to stop to fill up with water etc but a narrowboat was moored there and the young couple were eating their lunch. It transpired that their boat was only one month old and belonged to the girl's dad. He had let them have it for a week's holiday but they didn't know the basics. We let them use our hose to fill up with water, showed them where to empty the loo and rubbish and gave them some hints on where they might moor. They hadn't realised they couldn't stay at the water point - they were probably so grateful to get a space!! Sometimes boat owners aren't very considerate when mooring and space themselves out or don't seem to move on so it can become a problem.


Which brings me to our next good deed. Having got ourselves sorted we decided to go a short distance up the river and moor for the night in a remote spot. After a week in St Ives, we fancied some peace and quiet. We hadn't got very far before we came across a young man with a boy of about 12 stranded on their narrowboat in the middle of nowhere.

Musing the salvage value?

The boat was pretty old but he had bought it five weeks ago and had just had it serviced. It had suddenly lost it's oil pressure and was dripping oil in the engine. We offered to tow him to safety (I must admit I thought it would be about 10 minutes) To cut a long story short we managed to get him to a marina 3 hours later where he was met by a friend who was able to help him out.

Three hours later!!!!

Job Done and a friendly wave

We had gone much further than we intended and now had to find somewhere to moor for the night. Further up the river we tried to moor bankside and ran aground, so Tom had to pole us off. I tried to give him some helpful advice of how it should be done, but by then we were speaking to each other through gritted teeth!!!!

Anyway we finally moored at 7.30pm just by the main Ely to Cambridge railway line and the express train seems to be whizzing past about every 10 minutes. That is the longest we have been on the move since we started this trip and we are both tired. It didn't help that the boat we towed passed us about an hour later, having been temporarily fixed.


Oh well, so much for this tranquil stress free life. Once we had eaten we could laugh about it - who knows what tomorrow will bring.