Date - 22/04/08 Day - Wednesday Start - 1100 Fenny Stratford End - 1845 Bridge 118 Slapton
We woke to steady rain and as we are in no hurry decided to wait until it stopped at 11am before setting off. The omens where good, at the first lock there was a boat just entering coming towards us and as we left a second turned up. As the day progressed the weather got steadily better ending with a lovely evening. Today I witnessed something I had never seen before. I saw two Herons fly from the bank, drop into the canal and catch a fish as they hit the water, the third was more impressive flying across the canal and catching a fish while on the wing, continuing over to the far bank before landing and eating it. In the past I have only seen them fishing while standing in the water or on the bank and thrusting only their heads down. We passed through a long fishing match which surprised me being mid week but they informed me it was an "old gits" match for the retired. At the Soulbury Three we caught up with a boat just as they were leaving the first lock, they kindly offered to wait in the second, by the time we had gone up the first the pound between the two locks was down by about 2 feet so I crossed very slowly and only dragged the bottom as I entered the second chamber. We carried on it the sun until we came across Fair-Fa moored in the middle of nowhere so we stopped for a couple of hours with Pat and Sheila catching up on what's happened since we last saw each other. After leaving them we were held up just above Linslade lock with a BW work boat at right angles across the cut, I poled it round against the towing path and moored it up for them. We saw a Moorhen nesting in a tyre fender on a boat moored outside Tesco in Linslade. I think Tesco must have a computer glitch as the magnet was not on and we sailed straight by. After this we did about another 3 miles and a lock before mooring up for the night by bridge 118 at Slapton. -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Join SOW and help save our waterways http://www.saveourwaterways.org
