The pound is low (not a Boris Johnson story)

We wanted to get as far through Manchester as we could today, so we made a fairly early start. We pushed on into Altrincham and Sale, and Loulie got out to do a 5km run along the towpath. We got up to Waters Meeting, and turned onto the leg into Manchester, thereby moving into water new to us. We sailed past Salford Quays, with the Lowry and Media City in the distance, then under the shadow of Old Trafford. We reached the end of the Bridgewater at Castlefields Basin, where the Earl of Bridgewater used to unload the coal for Manchester.

The end of the Bridgewater meant that we moved onto the Rochdale Canal, and the difference was immediately obvious. We had to climb a series of locks, all very badly maintained and with minimal conveniences - only one bridge per lock, which means a lot of extra walking for the crew. We were going up through the very centre of the city, past Deansgate and Oxford Road - one lock was literally under a building near the Palace Theatre. Parts of the towpath have been closed, apparently to stop drunks falling in, and everywhere is scattered with the detritus of inner city night life.

On walking up to the sixth lock I discovered a boat ahead of us grounded in the exit - the pound was too low, and as we waited it emptied entirely. It wasn't clear why this was happening - in the end we assumed a combination of poorly fitting lock gates, and low water flow due to minimal traffic. They had called CRT but they never turned up, and in the end we went to the next lock and opened all the paddles to flush water through. This involved climbing over walls, as that lock is not normally accessible from the road. This allowed their boat to creep through, and then it was our turn. We were concerned we might ground half way out of the lock and tip backwards, so we edged forward very carefully until we were out and could close the gates behind us, to retain water in the pound.

There still wasn't enough water and I was stuck, so Loulie went forward, climbed down from the road, and opened all the sluices and the lower lock gates. We were reminded how shallow a canal really is - the water would rise a few inches and I was able to push forward a few yards, then I would stick again. All this was taking place along Canal Street in the centre of Manchester, with hundreds of drinkers from the bars watching over the walls down into the canal. Eventually we scraped into the next lock, which filled slowly, and we were off again. The next few locks were through very dodgy country, with odd characters lurking down the tunnels and hiding from sight. At last we reached Piccadilly Basin and turned off the Rochdale Canal onto the Ashton.

To be honest, this was not a huge improvement on the Rochdale. The major differences were that the locks were single width, and had anti-vandal locks on all the paddles. We have a key but this just adds extra grit to the process - eight extra fiddly processes per lock. Having wasted about three hours scraping through the empty pound at Canal Street we were not going to get to our target tonight, so now we were just looking for anywhere it was possible to moor safely. We passed the Etihad stadium (Man City) and the National Velodrome before finding a bit of bank we could moor to above the eighth lock. There was a factory opposite and a fence behind the towpath, but there was enough grass to hammer in the mooring pins and, at half past eight, that was enough. We fed and watered the dogs, fed and watered ourselves, and went to bed.

TODAY: 11.45 HOURS. 13.5 MILES. 17 LOCKS.

VOYAGE: 16.95 HOURS. 26.8 MILES. 17 LOCKS

Off again

So we are off on another adventure, and if things go to plan this will be our longest journey in Eileen, two full weeks. We're going to do the Cheshire Ring, clockwise, and probably a couple of side trips too - the Peak Forest to Whalley Bridge is one we're definitely looking at.

Today though was very familiar waters, as we ready ourselves for the run through Manchester tomorrow. We didn't want to wind up having to spend the night in the centre, so we have positioned ourselves close to the urban area as a jump-off point. We didn't set off from Keckwick bridge until about half two, because we were only planning on about four hours cruising, up to our favourite spot at the Bollin Aqueduct. This took us through Stockton Heath, where we stopped at Thorne Marine and filled up with diesel - she took 180 litres, which is far more than we have ever got into her before.

We have an extra passenger on this trip, at least for the first week. Blossom the Labrador is with us, while her owner Shirley is at Pony Club Camp, where they can't take their dogs. Fortunately our pack already know Blossom, and she is Minnie's best friend - they are very alike. Blossom seems to have settled down pretty well to shipboard life - she was sleeping on the stern with the rest of them before we had gone too far.

After that we carried on through Grappenhall and Thelwall to Lymm, which was looking very picturesque in the sunshine. It is strange - when I approached it by road I never found Lymm very appealing, but arriving by canal seems to put an entirely different face on the village.

It was a beautiful evening, we opened the sun roof, which isn't very often possible. We carried on until just after seven, when we reached our target at the Bollin Aqueduct. To our delight there was nobody else on the stretch, apart from one boat at the far end, half a mile away. There were a fair number of walkers coming past though - one couple who have three dogs and a boat themselves photographed our stern because it is such a good design to keep the dogs aboard. Another couple had a Labrador with them, and we let ours off to play with it for quite a long time. We're off to bed now - we expect an early start, as the sun wakes the dogs, but in any case we want to set off early and get as far as we can through the city.

TODAY: 4.5 HOURS. 11.5 MILES. 0 LOCKS.

VOYAGE: 5.5 HOURS. 13.3 MILES. 0 LOCKS

(Not) running on empty

We are setting off to do the Cheshire Ring tomorrow, and as we will be starting off northwards, towards Manchester, it made sense to bring Eileen up to Keckwick Lane bridge, close to the house, so we could load up more easily in the morning, and at the same time have a half hour head start. So I set off with the dogs to walk to the marina, a bit more than two miles, thus exercising them and at the same time going to collect Eileen.

We got aboard and prepared to set off. I was a little surprised when I started her, that the fuel gauge seemed to be on zero, as I was sure we had plenty of diesel. However as I pulled away from the pier the engine stuttered and died - clearly the gauge had been spot on. I was just too far gone to get back on the pier, so we drifted across the marina and up against a pier with liveaboard boats. By very good luck we happened to end up at a spot where there was a gap just big enough to take Eileen, so by a little manoeuvring with the pole I got her tied up, explaining to someone on the next boat why they suddenly had an unexpected neighbour.

There was nothing for it but to get some fuel, but first I had to get the dogs home - on foot. They were very confused when I got them off the boat, because the way to land was now forward, whereas we had approached from the stern when we arrived. It took a lot of tugging to get them going in the right direction, very tricky on a narrow wooden jetty with four confused and eager dogs.

After walking them home I drove to Thorne Marine in Stockton Heath, and bought two 10l containers, which were then filled with diesel. I also had a long discussion with the man about how to bleed the air out of a diesel system which has run dry, and get the fuel running again - involving undoing each link in the fuel feed and getting the liquid running through.

Back to the marina, and I decanted the fuel into the tank. While doing that I inspected the locking filler cap, because it was clear to me now that we have had the diesel stolen - the logbook shows that the last time we ran her we finished with half a tank. Sure enough the locking cap isn't locking - even with the key in the on position the cap still unscrews. I don't know whether it has simply deteriorated, or if the thief broke it, but either way we will need a new one.

Once the fuel was in I thought I would give the engine a spin to see if it might start, and to my surprise it caught instantly - as Loulie said when I rang to tell her - "What a great boat!" I squeezed back out of the hole I was in, with some difficulty, and then cruised down the canal to Keckwick, as planned but rather later. I moored up, and we have already put some supplies (mostly liquid) on board ready for the start of the trip tomorrow.

Eileen moored opposite Daresbury Labs

Ellesmere Port June 2019

We were able to get away for a week at the start of June - we're going to have a full two weeks later in the summer when we plan to do the Cheshire Ring, so we had to decide what to do with this shorter break. We opted to tick off Ellesmere Port from our list - it is the extreme northern end of the Shropshire Union canal, and also has the National Boat Museum, so it is somewhere we had down to get to, and a week seemed like a fairly easy round trip. Our plan was to crank it down to Ellesmere Port on the first few days, so that we could come back in a much more leisurely fashion on the return. Loulie needed to be back home on Friday evening for a horse event on the Saturday, and we didn't want to be under time pressure.

Ready to sail

We actually set off on the Thursday evening (30th May). We drove down to the marina and put the dogs and luggage aboard, then Loulie drove home, and cycled back up to Preston Brook, while I took the boat out and met her under the M56 bridge. We put the bike on board, and got through the tunnel at half three, which put us through the Saltersford tunnel at half five. At the Barnton we had to wait as there was a boat coming the other way. As we stood there we thought we could hear music, and sure enough when the boat came out there was someone playing the violin in the stern. We wanted to get on as far as we could that evening, and in the end we moored in a spot we have used before, just short of Wincham bend.

Bed shenanigens

The next day we pushed on to Middlewich, and took on water just below Big Lock. After going up that one and the three-lock flight we refuelled at Kings Lock, and then turned onto the Branch of the Shroppie. We went up the Wardle and Stanthorne locks, then moored out in the country at a remote spot. The next day we stopped in the morning at the Aqueduct Marina for a pumpout, then found ourselves in long queues for the final two locks on the Branch, before turning right at Barbridge and heading for Chester. Down the Bunbury staircase, and then we met some first-time hirers and did a couple of locks with them. They stopped at the Shady Oak, and we went on a bit and moored well out from the bank, on the usual Shroppie shelf.

We planned to get all the way to Ellesmere Port the next day (Sunday) so we got off fairly early. Soon after we started we passed Tattenhall Marina, where our adventures with Eileen all began last year. The new people from yesterday caught up with us at the first of the five locks down into Chester, so we did those with them - I found the bicycle really useful on this flight, which are spaced out so that walking is rather slow. We stopped in the pool in Chester and did some shopping, then carried on down the three-lock staircase under the shadow of the city walls. This is quite spectacular - each lock drops you about 11 foot, but because of the way the staircase works, the gates are looming twice that height above you when you are at the bottom.

We emerged into the basin at the bottom, where a flight of locks leads down tot he River Dee - the bottom lock is permanently closed now. We went on through the suburbs of Chester, around the zoo and then headed off across the flatlands of the Wirrall towards Ellesmere Port. It must be said that the surrounding became less salubrious as we travelled, and we decided we did not want to moor close to that end of the canal. So we reached the Boat Museum, turned in the pool there, above the three locks which lead down to the Ship Canal, and headed back the way we had come. We eventually moored at quite a nice spot near the village of Stoak, on an Armco bank with no shelf.

The next morning the engine wasn't keen to start, though it caught eventually, and we noticed that the starter battery was very flat, and there were warning lights on the battery control panel. We called Matthew at the NNC, and tried doing a few things he suggested to relay power between the batteries, but nothing seemed to work. We decided we would take Eileen in to Nantwich the next day, to get it looked at, so we wanted to get on as far as we could. We went back up the staircase flight - even more imposing when you enter from the bottom and look up at the lock doors above you - and then we worked up the five locks out of Chester. We kept going up Wharton's Lock and we eventually ran out of light above the second Beeston lock, the Stone Lock.

The next morning when we tried to start up there was no charge in the battery, so we had to call the NNC for help, and waited for a couple of hours until someone came. In the end all he had to do was put a jump lead across from the leisure battery bank to the starter, and that got us going, but of course we needed to get the problem fixed, so we carried on to Nantwich anyway, arriving late in the afternoon, after a very wet trip in the pouring rain. They couldn't do anything then, so we slept overnight in the finger moorings in the boatyard.

In the morning I cycled off to Sainsbury's on the other side of town, and when I got back I discovered that the engineer had found and fixed the problem, which happily was not a failed alternator but only a loose connection. He also advised us to rev the engine hard on starting each time, to get the charger to kick in properly. We were back on the canal by lunchtime, and now we were under no time pressure, so we cruised to Barbridge and then did the first two locks on the Branch before mooring at a nice spot just past Church Minshull. I went for a run on the towpath, which was no fun as the footing was horribly uneven, and the Strava app which I used to track the run lost credibility when I told me that I had done 50 feet of climb - on the towpath.

On Thursday morning we started without hurry, and found ourselves in queues at Stanthorne and Wardle locks. However when we turned north to do the three-flight and Big Lock it was quiet again. We picked up water below Big Lock and did some shopping, and then decided to push on through some rainy weather, eventually mooring near Wincham at the same spot we had a week ago. On Friday morning we again had an easy start, through Saltersford at 13:00 and Preston Brook at 15:00. Loulie cycled home to get the car, and I moored very comfortably in calm weather back at the marina. Quite an eventful trip, but good fun, and Mabel seems to enjoy the boat as much as the Labradors - it's only Ruby that hates it. We can cross Ellesmere Port off our bucket list - it's not a stretch of canal we're likely to want to revisit very often, I think.

Voyage: 56.75 hours. 105.8 miles. 46 locks.