A move for water

Stone visitor moorings to below Stone bottom lock : about 300 feet, 1 lock
To date : 956 miles, 673 locks 

It was extremely windy yesterday evening and the boat rocked about like crazy.  Looking out at the lights reflected on the water, it looked more like Port Phillip Bay than a pound between two locks.... very choppy.

Mick went to talk wood bleach with Nick on nb Marpessa 2 and said farewell to Murky.  They're off today in the opposite direction... braving the Winter out on the cut.  We're whimps aren't we!  He helped a boat through a few locks and it turned out they were blog readers.  Mick has no idea of the name of the boat or the folk.

We did a couple of loads of washing today as we were running out of clothes.  Plus, it was time we moved on from the prime visitor moorings and there's a water point below the last lock in Stone.  nb Winton's Folly and ourselves were the only genuine visitors on the moorings.  There was a short engine boat that's used for pulling barges along and there was that annoying Brocklebank boat (still there from a week ago) but nobody else.

We had a bit of a boaters meeting before lunch and Barry and Carol went on ahead of us down the lock. Mick went to work the lock for them.

Now on our own, Mick darted out between rain showers to finish polishing that side of the boat and once it was done we headed off too. Mick had gone off to the lock untying the bow rope on his way.  By the time I got sorted I looked up to see the bow had been blown almost all the way across the canal it was so windy.  I muddled about getting the boat under control without bumping into Brocklebank and by then the lock was almost ready anyway.

The other day when we walked down below this last lock to check out the mooring situation, the moorings down here were rammed with boats.  Something must have gone on because there's hardly a boat in sight.  I suspect they may have been moved on because a couple that were here the other day were bridge hoppers from last year.  We stopped on the very first mooring as there's a tiny concrete pad at the beginning of the armco.  If we angled our mooring ropes in instead of out we'd be getting off the boat onto the concrete instead of the ever increasing mud along the edge.  It worked a treat.  We had discovered a while back that having the ropes angled in doesn't make a huge difference.  We had been on rings in concrete then so there was no choice in the matter whatsoever.  It's worked well today too.

We'll spend a couple of days here now and head on to the marina on the weekend.  Ahhh... the lure of unlimited electricity.

Last night Mick said he felt a bit cold so there was nothing for it but to pull apart the dinette seats to fish out the heavier weight duvet.  I'm amazed we've gone this long with just the Summer one. I vac zipped the lighter one into the bag and put it away and also got out my puffy black Winter coat.  I still can't imagine having to wear it... the weather just isn't cold enough.  How quickly we forget what's it like to feel chilled to the bone.  I had a further thinning out and we got rid of a couple more bits and pieces.

The new rail above the Acorn stove is working a treat with drying the washing.  We should have put it there ages ago!