Yesterday I had a look at the gear box to adjust the reversing brake band, of course me without a set of imperial spanners, and not enough room for the shifter, I had to leave it till later. Today, after working a short shift, I visited Halfords (near the Hanger Lane Gyratory) on the way back to the boat. That was my first mistake, but I should have known better after calling them earlier and getting the comment, "I don't know if we have that make, please hold".

So leaving spannerless, I thought I would try the bigger one in Northolt. There is a small car spares place on the high street, but I wasn't expecting it to be open. It was, and a couple of minutes later I left the shop with an imperial set for less than a fiver.

Trundled down to service moorings only to find it full with moored boats - not using the facilities of course! I moored under the bridge using a piling hook, and the centre rope, and lugged the loo down to the emptying point. I think I must have pulled my back at this point as it hurt a little afterwards.

I finally reached Bulls Bridge at about 20:00, and after spotting Sanity near the end of the moorings, pulled alongside. I did a quick shop, and then had a chat and a drink with Bruce and Sheila for the rest of the evening.

Sunday 6th August 2006
Bulls Bridge to Paddington
13 miles, 0 locks

I wanted a little lie in, so we arranged a 10am off, and I'm glad I did. It was really hot in the night, and with the noise from the Tesco refrigerated lorries, it kept me awake till late. I wanted to clean the boat as it was looking particularly mucky next to the immaculate Insanity. I also got rid of more spiders that had built up over my holidays on Kismet.

We left Bulls Bridge at 10:05 and had a good run down to the Alperton Sainsbury's where the Napier's wanted to purchase some stuff that Tesco's didn't have/do. It was also a good time to have lunch, and so we didn't leave till 13:00, after two other boats had passed heading into town.

We arrived at Paddington just before 15:00, and while Sanity filled with water, I tried to find an empty mooring in the now very popular basin. All the usual moorings were full, but I managed to get on the outside of the first business barge moorings, near the corner. Of course the ever useful BW has not placed any mooring rings on here, so you have to get your rope around gaps in the floating pontoon. I suggested that Bruce should put his rope on mine to avoid annoyance.

I thought I would tackle the gearbox here, and Bruce showed an interest, so together we tried to sort it out. After taking off the lid, and using the imperial spanners I bought earlier, I managed to loosen the locking nuts. Now we could not work out how to turn the wheel which runs on the reversing brake lever. It wasn't until we reread the instructions again did we realise we had to remove the lever shaft. Once tapped out with a hammer, the screw which turned the wheel moved freely, and with a full 360 degree turn we tried to get the shaft back into the forward, and reverse arms again. This proved difficult, until we realised that in forward gear the lever is allow to rest normally. I presume this is so if there is a problem the gear lever it is left in forward gear. With a little fiddle we got it back in, but the reverse seemed a little stiff, so we took the shaft back out, I took off 180 degrees, and tried again. It seemed OK, but tomorrow will tell.

Nuggler entered the basin later in the day. I saw him pass Northolt on Friday. Apparently they had gone down to Limehouse for a birthday party, but once he was back to Paddington the rest of the party had left him, and so later that evening we all got together on Sanity for some good old toilet chat.

A friend was maybe going to join me today, however he decided not to, so we got off early to reach Limehouse before 17:00 to meet Sanity's guests for the next week. The weather had changed, and the rain that was promised to pass in the night was still with us in the morning. It didn't stop until we were well down the locks.

Bruce was not too happy about the attempted turn at Cumberland Basin. Sheila's excuse was that she was to busy looking at the floating Chinese restaurant boat, and didn't notice how sharp the turn is. She didn't hit the wall though!

On the second Camden lock there was a bloke lying under the towpath side lock beam, oblivious to the rest of the world, and on the third lock a couple of drunks were taking an unhealthy interest in helping us through the lock. I don't know if it was here, or later at Old Ford Lock, that Bruce was approached for money. Daftly he gave them two pounds, under the disapproving eye of Sheila.

All the locks were against us, and we finally caught up with another boat (whose name I've forgotten, but Bruce believed it was the bloke behind the radio callsign 'Ents1'). They were trapped behind a BW wide work boat single handing down the locks, and it didn't stop until Sturts Lock (IIRC). Afterwards we didn't see them again until we reached Limehouse.

We turned into Ducketts Cut (the Hertford Union), and found the first two locks full with gates open. They must have left the top lock in a hurry as they managed to leave a ground paddle up as well!

I had plenty of trouble from picking plastic up on the prop. I don't normally have too much of a problem normally, but on this trip I had real trouble knocking it back off, so I needed two weedhatch trips during the day.

The Lea Old Ford Lock proved a little trouble when Bruce could not operate the mechanised lock. It turned out he had not waited long enough for the timed top paddles to rise, and the only paddle he could see from the panel had no indicator.

I persuaded the Napiers to have a look at the back rivers, but the flowers that Sheila had been nurturing for months where quite high on the roof, and were difficult to move, so Bruce joined me on Shoestring, and Sheila took Sanity down the main river.

I was a little worried that it might be a little weedy down the Back River, but apart from a good covering of duck weed, all was OK. Not much sign of building work, but there were two teams of surveyors measuring the river bed. The new City Mill Lock looks nearly ready to go, and it will be interesting to see this working.

Sheila took it steady, and we met at the junction at about the same time, and we then followed her down to Limehouse.

The moorings were a little full there, and so after finding out the marina moorings were £18 a night, we asked one of the boats to shuffle up a little so we could squeeze in. We moored, and went to talk to the lock keeper. He was letting a lock full up at the time, and at first warned us off the partially open top gates, though waved us through almost immediately. After looking at the river, we went back, and walked through the open gate to talk to the two lock keepers. Straight away the lock keeper asked us to "move behind the fence", as we should have a life jacket on. I mentioned about having no problems with being on the edge of Goole's Ocean lock without a life jacket, but we moved back.

After looking the boats up he took us back to the control room, where I asked some questions about the pictures on the wall. There were some nice historic aerial photos of the area, which showed the old Limehouse cut lock, and the original Limehouse/Regents canal link - which was closed again after the Regents Canal was loosing some trade through it. The lock keeper plied us with documents, the most useful being the BW Guide to the Tidal Thames, which shows on a bridge by bridge basis where to go.

By the time we had got back, Sanity's guests had arrived. After a little discussion it was decided to have dinner in the Cruising Association. A Beef Provence with Rice was the special, and everyone else had that. I fancied the ham, egg, and chips which I enjoyed nicely.