We're out of dry dock

We spent two weeks in the dry dock. Roger applied three coats of blacking which had plenty of time to cure before the boat went back in the water. It never ceases to amaze me how many boaters spend lots of time and money blacking their boats and then launch them too soon. It clearly states on the tin that you should leave it to cure for a minimum of 2 days before it goes back in the water. And then they wonder why it doesn't seem to last very long..........

He also did some modifications to the stern gear to make the steering lighter and more responsive, which will make it easier for me to manage until I get my strength back. We haven't had chance to test it out much yet but first impressions are good. By the time we get down to Manchester in a couple of weeks I'll be able to tell you if it worked and go into more details about the alterations he made.

While I did very little apart from reading and playing hundreds of games of Solitaire Roger did lots of painting,  making good the battle scars we accumulated over the winter and the boat looks almost new again. Shame it won't last, especially with me driving through the locks.

It only takes 15 minutes to re-fill the dock and then we were pulled out.  Well actually we got stuck! The canal water level was about 6 inches lower than normal and we had a devil of a job getting out over the cill.

We're still here at Portland Basin Marina and will be staying for another week or so. There are hundreds of fish here, some are really quite big. It doesn't seem right to try and catch them so Roger is waiting till we get back out on the mainline before he does any fishing.

Yesterday we were invited out to lunch with some old friends. We met Sue and Vinnie who live in Macclesfield Marina along with Helga who used to live there a couple of years ago. It was Sue's birthday and we had a great time, finally being asked to leave at closing time. I hadn't realised the Boar's Head at Higher Poynton still closed in the afternoon, but it was probably a good job it does as otherwise we would still have been there at tea time as we had so much catching up to do.