Boats moored in the winding hole at Castlefield made turning tricky so we decided to reverse out.  Inspite of shallow water and prop encumbrances Pat did a fine job.  After a short distance we stopped to remove the debris and Peter dived into the weed hatch yet again with his manly torso on display to all.  What a haul!!

This was from only about half an hour getting away from  Castlefield.

The next picture is included for a very special person.

The crossing of the Manchester Ship Canal was uneventful and it looked as if it was seldom brought into operation.

At Parrin Lane we started to wonder if we had gone badly wrong with our navigation. A lighthouse we must be at sea!

We had a brief stop at Worsley to top up the water tank and to visit The Delph.  Here an underground canal system joined the canal to the Duke of Bridgewater’s Coal mines.

We then moved on to moor at Pennington Flash ready for a day of relaxation, on Monday, visiting the nature reserve.  This should help us build up our strength for the  23 locks, rising 214 ft 8 inches,  on the Wigan flight the following day.

It was raining quite hard as we moored up but it looks as if we will have a nice quiet night.