TRIP REPORTS

A WEEKEND IN THE EAST END

8 - 10 June 2007

PART 1 — FRIDAY & SATURDAY

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We'd been pottering around the London area for some weeks and were moored at the London Canal Museum in Battlebridge Basin, where I'd been working the previous day. Our plan for the weekend was to join St Pancras Cruising Club's boat gathering in Three Mills, including a cruise round the loop of the Bow Back Rivers for the last time before they closed to navigation on 2^nd July to become the building site for the Olympics.

We were the inboard boat of three - the others (all friends of ours) being Alex & Jenny Nunes on Helix, due to do a trip with passengers, and Libby Bradshaw and Allan Scott on Panacea who were also heading for the SPCC gathering. Libby went off to work early. Alex & Jenny left to go and collect their customers, then brought them back to see the Museum before going off on their cruise. Eric Garland arrived in the late morning to crew on Panacea and both boats set off eastwards at 11:53.

We had a good run down the Regent's. Two boats with four crew is a lot easier in the heavy locks of the Regent's than one boat with two people. Our loo-tank warning light came on, so we needed to go via Limehouse for a pump-out. Wendy bought three 30-unit pump-out cards from the Marina office. While we were seeing to that, Eric & Allan went off to The Grapes and were in no hurry to come back,. As there was nowhere else left to moor other than the pump-out point, we thought we ought to set off again.

We arrived at the moorings below Three Mills Bridge at 16:30. Margaret & John Gwalter helped us to moor nose-to-nose with Ernest. Panacea arrived later, and Libby came from work. Eric had to go off to feed a friend's dogs, then came back. Various people joined us for drinks on our front deck, then we had a very pleasant barbecue.

Wendy shopped early at Tesco (long before I was awake), and then we had a lazy day. Mid-afternoon most of the boats went off to Limehouse for a visit to The Grapes before locking out onto the tideway to go up Brentford Creek then round to Lea Mouth and up Bow Creek and Abbey Creek to look at Prescott Channel before locking in at Bow. We and a cruiser called Club Claret decided to miss out on the tideway and lock out of Bow at 19:00 to join the others on their way to Abbey Creek.

At 18:26 we went up-river to Bow Bridge Junction where we winded and came back to just before Bow Locks, where we were joined by Club Claret. We stopped to clear the blade. I'd managed to throw off some of the grot, but there was still a lot of plastic there, including a heavy-gauge plastic sheet twisted up with some weed which felt like a rope. I used a hook provided by our boat-builder to deal with that bit of the load. While we were dealing with that, Club Claret was called into the lock and set off down the Creek. Eventually our blade was free and we were able to go into the lock. We were in two minds whether to wait in the lock until the others (already overdue) appeared. A 'phone conversation with Club Claret told us that they were some way down the Creek with no sign of the others, so they were obviously running very late. So we decided to set off down the Creek slowly, to meet the rest of the flotilla.

Bow Creek

By the time we reached the DLR bridge with no sight of the others, we were beginning to wonder whether to turn back, as we were all due to lock back in at 20:00. Then we saw Galatea, one of our flotilla and another boat, which wasn't one of those we were expecting. It looked rather like Terry Streeter's Arun. It was Arun. Terry had met the others at Limehouse and decided to postpone his trip up the tideway until next day and join them. We winded behind this pair of boats as Club Claret came in sight behind them. We decided that both light and tide were fading, so we'd miss out the trip up Abbey Creek to Prescott Channel. We had to wait a short time while Galatea & Arun locked through, then we did the same in company with Club Claret. It was nearly high tide and there was only about three feet rise to the lock. As we were locking though, Ernest arrived and headed up towards Abbey Creek.

We tied up before Three Mills bridge at 20:27 and learnt that the delay for the main flotilla had been threefold (a) the expected grounding in Deptford Creek (b) Rhino getting a steel rod round its blade and (c) Panacea having an engine (or gearbox?) failure. Panacea had been taken in tow by Ernest until the more powerful Rhino had finished clearing its blade, whereupon it took over the tug duty. A little while later Ernest joined us and moored outboard of FC3. They reported that the footbridge across the bottom end of Prescott Channel was still in place and the tide had been too high for them to get under it. From that point they'd not been able to see any of the work on the new lock. Finally Rhino arrived with Panacea in tow. The three chaps on Club Claret had taken their boat to Limehouse, where they'd booked rooms at the Cruising Association. Then they came back by taxi to join us for another barbecue. Unfortunately Wendy couldn't join in as she'd developed a bad headache and went to bed. John put Ernest's engine-room step on our well-deck locker to make a step up onto the high bank.