First time out this year

Liz's dad has been in hospital for most of this year. He went in on 28/12 and only came out for one week at the end of January. Added to the weekends that Liz has had to work and the weekends that the canal was frozen, this is the first time we have managed to take Blackstone out this year.

It is Carl's birthday today and we were determined to spend it on the boat.

As usual, we chose to go to Dunham. It is not too far and is usually nice and quiet. We always manage to get a good mooring spot.

We set off from Preston Brook Marina around 9:45. We had left Blackstone pointing in the right direction last time we came in to the Marina, so it was a quick get away. It was drizzling when we set off, but it stopped fairly soon and stayed dry for the rest of the day.

Both Lymm and the Old No 3 were quiet. They are always fully moored up during the summer. It's always the same boats. Although they are both 48 hour moorings, the regular boats just ignore this and stay as long as they want. No one does anything about it. It's a pain, because it means other boaters can't get in to moor at Lymm for shopping.

There seem to be a few unlicensed boats around this year. Also some BW licenced boats who have spent the winter on the Bridgewater. The BW licence only allows boats to stay on the Bridgewater for one week, while they travel from one BW canal to another. If they want to stay longer, they are supposed to buy a Bridgewater licence. However, Peel Holdings, who own the Bridgewater, never seem to bother checking up.

It was a lovely cruise, plenty of mallards and moorhens, not too cool and just enough boats on the move. We pottered along and moored at Dunham at 2:30, after winding just through Dunham Town Bridge. We are lucky, as we are only 42 feet long, there are plenty of places on the Bridgewater where we can wind. We don't have to worry about finding a winding hole.

We tried out the water explorer web site and entered our journey as we cruised. It was OK for this short journey. We will have to wait and see how it works out when we have a longer, more complicated cruise.

We also tried out our TV signal finder for the first time. We are not usually bothered about TV, so we just do a quick twist of the aerial, and if we don't get a signal we take the aerial down again and listen to the radio instead. However, sometimes, there is something that we would like to watch. With the switch over to digital, we thought we would have more difficulties finding a signal to tune into. So when we saw the signal finder from Fringe Electronics, we thought we would give it a try. It was certainly quicker and less frustrating.

Signing off now to watch CSI New York, with a brilliant digital TV signal!