Pottering around - Cardiff bay and the tiny canals

The boat needed a run out to warm up all the oily bits before she was given another few days rest so the usual mad route around the bay ensued:

That rather confused track allowed us to warm up the main and wing engines and have a nice wide open throttle run for the big Lugger too. There were a couple of yachts out as well, we must have confused them quite a lot with our apparently drunken wanderings, speed changes etc etc.

Having given the boat a run, we then deserted her. For, shock horror, another boat! Only this one was tin, painted, 65 feet long, very slim and on the Shropshire union canal. If you want more info, peek at Poppy web page.  We had two extra crew with us, Izzy the famous little furry hound who often appears in this blog and Tina, a slightly less furry person who has also popped up here in the past. 65 foot of tin with no keel handles rather differently to our Nordhavn. For a start it likes going sideways much more readily. Being in 3 feet of water is also strange when we like significantly more than that under our keel. As for the narrow cuttings where two boats struggle to pass each other - that is a bit like squeezing into the berth that the pretty hopeless folks at Hamble Point give you when they confuse metres and feet in your beam measurement.

As you can see, Izzy took her job of watchdog as we pottered along at under 3mph most seriously:

whilst Tina found that she was just a touch too short to see over the cabin roof whilst helming:

However, she does look entirely focussed on the job and suitable tooled for bad weather, of which there was very little indeed. Meanwhile the regular crew was a little concerned about hitting her head going through a tunnel:

whereas Tina was much braver:

and quite blase about the whole adventure. They managed all the lock winding, Izzy walking and cuddles that were needed most effectively. During one soggy afternoon, we opted for a superb pub lunch in Market Drayton and the opportunity to watch some of the Rugby World Cup. Izzy seemed transfixed by the sight of so many hunky men:

All went well until we had #walkingbootgate. Whilst wandering into Wheaton Aston Tina found that the sole of her boot had come loose and that it was gently flapping around as she walked. This was an excellent excuse for the 3 crew to hide in the nearby pub whilst the captain raided the local Spar shop for a repair kit consisting of string and superglue. We were lucky that they had those items, not exactly a huge place.

Gluing up the sole of Tina's boot in the pub and cutting some lengths of string in case they were needed to help tie things together on the way back to the boat seemed to cause much fun:

and Izzy promptly laid her head on the newly glued boot once it was refitted to Tina's foot. We think we have a glue sniffer for a  goddog. 

or just a very tired one.

No matter what / why, it was a most relaxing week afloat. Go and look at the Norbury Wharf website and book yourself a few days on the lovely Shropshire union.