The next two days were always going to feel a bit weird, I was just getting in the swing on boating and exploring! A couple of weeks at home mooring and I reckon i’ll be out again 🙂
The river is not like a canal and the Severn can be a challenge when in flood or during the extreme tides surrounding full and new moons. I had seen on a couple of the facebook groups a warning for lots of debris being bought up with the high tides. Tree stumps etc can cause big damage to boats if they are being thrown towards you by a strong current.
We looked at the tide times and predicted rises the night before:
I decided to ring the Gloucester lock keeper to get advise on best time to leave Tewkesbury to head down. Glad I did as I received lots of advice on what was ahead. We thought that in this instance the life jackets would be worth wearing as in these extreme tides, the river is in a more unpredictable state. What was interesting along the way home was that its not often we see narrowboaters wear life preservers on the river but today everyone we saw was wearing them!
We took it easy down the river and slowly through a section called the Partings which is notorious for gathering debris. We could see by the banks that we would be ok as the water level had already dropped by about 1 metre which mean the tide had turned and was heading back out. In Sharpness it had gone up by 9 metres!
This meant the debris was now clearing Gloucester Lock although there were a couple of large tree trunks to steer around.
In the lock and safely back on the canal. We went through Llanthony bridge and make a quick pit stop at Sainsbury’s for dinner and carried on a little further down the canal for tonights mooring.
It had been raining most of the day today and super cold (i was wearing 3 coats at one point!). I think the cold did me in as i was struggling to keep my eyes open after tea and had a very early night!
The next day i was swinging round in the basin and back into the marina, a quick pit stop for diesel/gas/pump out then back all tucked up on my mooring.
Best get the book out to start planning the next one! Thanks for joining me on this journey, i’ve enjoyed sharing the ins and outs of the trip. If people are up for it, I shall continue when we start up again.
The last video can be found here: https://youtu.be/kl8g2Ugd9ew
That Niggling Thought 