Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS II YEARS

A SOUTHERN CRUISE : SUMMER 1994

Part 3 : The Main Summer Cruise starts
— Devizes to Bristol.

We resume the story with the boat at the foot of Devizes locks.

Wendy, the cats & I arrived from home by train and taxi, to find that John had done all three jobs himself. He also suggested we put a soft washer on the front bolt of the rocker-cover, as the present one is letting out a fine mist of oil. Also that we get our charging-splitter circuit seen to, as it doesn't see quite right. The cats were very much at home in a very short time. We set off at 19:00 and moored a few yards above Seend top lock nearly an hour later. There was a notice on them about time restrictions, but no padlocks.

On detailed reading of the restriction notice, we found it was out of date, so we set off as soon as we were ready, at 08:21, in nice sunny weather. At Hilperton Marina there was a delay getting a pump-out because a big Bruce Trust boat was ahead of us and had blockages on both its holding tanks. The rather gloomy man here told us of a supermarket just round the corner, so we went to to it. It's is called Norman's and we rated it definitely sub-Quik-Save! A visiting red cat took considerable interest in the boat.

Through Bradford-on-Avon the spectacular scenery on this stretch became evident, and we stopped at Bathampton at 20:06. I went to The George a good pub, but very crowded. IWA national Chairman David Stevenson's boat Black Swan was moored here, unoccupied. I rang Ian to re-schedule our meeting with him tomorrow as we were behind time.

We started at 07:28 in very misty conditions. We saw our old boat, the original Felis Catus, moored just before Sydney Gardens. Ian (an old friend, one-time part-owner with us of our old boat, and a regular summer crew member) joined us part-way through Widcombe locks, having walked up from Bath railway station. At the bottom lock I jarred my ankle and was of limited use for the rest of the day. We joined the Avon Navigation and moored up below Pulteney weir for a few minor bits of shopping (and because I'd had an ambition for years to moor just here).

The Avon is very attractive. At Hanham lock we expected to enter the tidal section. I said to Ian "That looks like a list of tide times over, go and see when the next one's due". He did that and came back, perplexed, with the answer "It seems to say Wednesday". This section is actually only tidal on biggish tides (about half the time), which they weren't at the moment, so we wouldn't meet the tide at all, which was quite good news.

When we reached the City of Bristol Docks we weren't sure what to do at the swing bridge, but heard it was opening shortly, so we waited and went through with a couple of big cruisers. This was Regatta weekend, so we pootled through the throng to the far end of the Docks and found a mooring near the Harbourmaster's office. The Assistant Harbourmaster was quite happy for us to stay there (it's zoned for fishing, but the Regatta seemed to have made everything different). We were tossed around by passing craft until quite late. Orinthia was visibly envious of a couple of big sea-going cruisers moored just by us. I talked with their people. They both moor in Lydney and often use the boats for weekend trips to Cornwall or Ireland. The pub we were moored by was quite pleasant but very busy. We wondered whether that was normal or because of the Regatta.