We were awake quite early this morning.  As we spotted a boat coming down “our” lock we decided to take advantage and set off at 7:35.  This turned out to be an excellent choice as we had every lock in our favour.  They were either ready to open, had just a couple of inches of water in them or another boat just coming down.

Some of the locks had had a bit of first aid (plastic tape bandaid) but apparently were still awaiting  proper attention after several months.  We again noticed some very strong water flows pushing Oliver forward in the locks and the ground paddles needed to be raised cautiously.

We reached the Top Lock (17) having seen three boats queuing at one lock to come down and another three or four at different places.  There was only one boat behind us during the entire flight.

We had been warned that the water levels were very low all along the summit and particularly in Fenny “Tunnel”.  This news was accurate.  Passing other boats was a bit fraught with one or the other often ending up aground, though the bottom seemed quite soft in many places.  On some corners the very shallow water made turning a bit like steering a car on ice.  Full rudder, a goodly number of revs on the engine and the boat just went straight ahead!  Somehow we miraculously avoided actually getting stuck or hitting anything.  We heard stories of others who were not so lucky.

After the trials of the Fenny “Tunnel” we had considered stopping in Fenny Compton.  We moored up briefly on the outskirts, checked out the opportunities and decided to move on.  We tried a few places in the area of bridge 132 but all were too shallow.  We kept going until 14:35 when we found some Armco barriers with a reasonable depth of water just before bridge 129.  By 7pm this had become a very popular stopping place but boats were still passing by in both directions.

Black clouds gathered not long after we arrived but the rain predicted for much earlier in the day has still not arrived.

We think we will probably move up to the moorings just before bridge 124 tomorrow and sit out the rain.  This will not be very demanding, will charge the batteries, heat the water and position us very nicely to get through Napton on Wednesday.  We will then be ready for Braunston Locks and Tunnel on Thursday.  But hey! Who knows?  Perhaps the sun will shine again tomorrow.