It was a lovely evening on our mooring last night, but there was some heavy rain in the early hours. By this morning it was again sunny and warm. We had a pretty relaxed start to the day, as we had an appointment at Heyford Fields, which was only about ten minutes away. We set off about 9.30, turned into the marina, nd moored on the workshop space.
While at Crick, we’d noticed that the sealant between the worktop and splashback in the galley had clearly failed (possibly because of the heat?), so Jam had arranged for Gary at Boating Leisure Services to replace it. He and I spent a while with razor blades getting all the old stuff out, then the new sealant went down. We were there about an hour. There was a stiff breeze blowing as I reversed off the pontoon and swung round to the entrance back onto the canal, but it all went very well.
These are very familiar waters, and they also take a while because of all the moored boats. We moored up before Gayton Jumction to have lunch, and then set off for our second short journey of the day to a marina. We went through the junction and turned into Blisworth Marina, with a very similar sort of bridge to that at Heyford Fields.
Our entry was slightly delayed by finding another boat turning and reversing into a spot right in front of us. Also, as we turned, as gust of wind sent the airer and our newly washed towels into the canal. Adrian was on the well deck and fished them out — with the exception of a bath mat, which sank. We’ll probably get it round our prop when we leave tomorrow! We’d been told which number berth we’d been allocated so Adrian jumped off to find it and I turned in. Our neighbours later said they didn’t hear us arrive, and suddenly noticed us through the window! It’s a nice spot, with a big grassy area out the front.
The other side of the grassy area is the A43 so it’s quite noisy, and the West Coast Mainline runs along the end of the marina. The reason we’re here is that we were talking to Jam at Crick about our batteries, and how the Victron Cerbo says they’re at 100 per cent, but they’re still taking in a lot of charge. He concluded they need some sort of recalibration, and the easiest way to do that is to plug into the mains. We checked in at the office, bought some electricity, and plugged into the shoreline. It’s just a matter of waiting until we get to 100 per cent, and the system should automatically figure things out. Jam is keeping an eye on the remote monitoring too. As we’re here, we’ve also had a delivery of a cool mat for Macc, and remarkably he’s even deigned to lay on it.
And I’ve stalled a carbon filter on the loo, because of the canal water which was coming in the skin fitting. I’ve been able to use the same pipe (although shorter) and it sits in the bathroom cupboard.
We’ll cap off the skin fitting, but for now I have jubilee clipped some plastic over the end in the cupboard, and turned the elbow joint so it points upwards. We’re also getting a Tesco delivery, as we haven’t been near a big supermarket for ages, and the next one isn’t until Wolverton.
4 miles, 0 locks. (17 miles, 14 locks)