Ice Road

Second to last day on the water. Opened the hatch and felt right at home. Inch thick ice. Not quite skating quality, but getting there.


Lovely. So long as you are comfortable inside the boat.

The ice makes interesting patterns....one is reminded of that scene in "Fantasia" where jack frost is skating all over the pond.


Gavin and his crew push off. Crashing through the ice. (I love the angle on this shot....makes it look more dramatic than it is!)


The ice here is easy to deal with. Its only an inch thick, but note that the chunks of ice are piling up. They froze rather quickly into layers two inches thick...then we had something to worry about. The pieces were big enough to need to increase the revs up to ramming speed from time to time. Mostly the problem is that we would end up in a slot in the ice and be unable to turn.

Being Canadian I sort of had to press on and smash through regardless. Most of the resident canal boaters just tied up, and went shopping, wait out this unseasonal ice. They all said "oy, at'll be thicka tomarrara aye, bat at'll be gone ba christmas." My reply... "Roight mate...ta fer now".

Locking Through

As we come up on the lock, we had to be VERY cautious about the ice. Its not like there are any handrails here! Observe that dangerous cill just at the bottom of the lock gate...if you are not forward enough, it will damage your propeller or rudder as you go down. Its pretty much the worst thing that can happen. The second worst thing would be opening the gate paddles (the valves) when a boat is close to the upper lock gate. You can see one of them, on the right of the picture....something has kept it from closing fully, and it is leaking somewhat. But thats okay since the lock is being filled at this point anyway.
Oh, unlike facebook guys, you can click on the pictures and see them full size.

The Naughty Natalie doing double duty as an ice breaker moving into the lock.


The snow is telling...it wasn't just falling and melting...it stayed, We didn't get it very bad at least by Canadian standards, but most of the UK that day was under a storm watch, and the country was fair to shut down. When I was locking through, Heathrow airport, an hour's drive south of us, was closed due to weather.



And here you can see the Naughty Natalie leaving the deep Shardlow locks, the icicles on the lock gates look kind of um...cold.

Serenity

The bulls going horn to horn, in back of the biggest potentilla bush Brenda has ever seen. I kind of like this pic...the conflict amidst the peace. This is a keeper.



Not much space available.

But this bucolic scene is trouble in paradise...thats ice up front. Very thin so far, but a warning nonetheless. A warning I didn't heed of course.

The Tudor Lady above was indicative of the pretty paint jobs on the canal boats.

Me and Grandad tying up beside the water point.

A view from the bridge. The canal boats seem totally to belong here, the cars, not so much.

The little bit of ice seemed to be just a small thing, the residents were not particularly worried. Still, a pleasant way to load up with water, get past the marinas, and out onto the open canal where the short days required us to start early, and tie up early. Not surprisingly, there were hundreds of pubs to choose from every night.

Heading out on the Canal

So here am I, setting out in the rain.


It looks miserable. Thats because it really WAS miserable. Here is a section of the river we had to power through before getting into the canal itself.





This would be a lock on the canal.


And me, intrepidly steering a multi thousand dollar piece of machinery into a teensy tiny lock.



The lock is always accompanied by a narrow little footbridge. The opening at the right side is for overflow from above. That creates a sideways current which is calculated to gray a few hairs.


The lock gates seem to have their own eco systems.

How exciting. I didn't know quite HOW exciting it would become.

Stay tuned....

Greek Gods Tournament

Seems that Cyprus is the birthplace of the Greek Goddess of Love, Aphrodite. That suits Lorne since he is not posted to Cyprus and will be there for a couple of years. To celebrate the occasion, we had a "Greek Gods Tournament". Okay, so the tournament didn't actually take place...too much fun was being had by chopping watermelons apart. If you click on the image below, you can see the remarkable backhand that Lorne put on his new battle axe. He doesn't have a name for it yet, I am sure my readers will come up with a couple of good un's for him to choose from. Oh the carnage!

Ian picked up a nice axe as well. This is what HIS axe does to a poor unsuspecting watermelon.

So Lorne, we are all very jealous of your posting, and after a long career of doing the shittiest jobs in the military, we wish you all the best on this tour of fun in the sun. I am sure that you will not create any international incidents in that powder keg in the Med. (Okay, now THAT's just wishful thinking)

I'll be over to check on you around Christmas.

When you think you have seen everything.

These nice people are very religious...they just happen to believe in things which are not invisible. Like esss eeee exxxx. In fact, every year, since the year dot, the people in Kawasaki Japan have held their phallic festival....to encourage the gods to allow their women to be fecund, their men to be libidinous, and the STD's to be absent. It might work...after all, Japan is known to be one of the most densly populated nations in the world.

Now lets get serious folks...this is a "relgious ceremony". Click on the images to enlarge.

Or maybe just rub the mouse gently....

Come on lady...the old guy is all excited by your playing with his church equipment!!

Bringing in the Sheaves....bringing in the sheaves. Wait a minute...those ain't sheaves!

Hmm....I think I have anvil lust.

http://funtasticus.com/20080417/why-japan-is-a-weird-country/ for many more pictures of this admitedly fascinating religious ceremony!