Day 4: 20th August. We had to be off early for the 09:30 booked passage down the Manchester 18. So at 07:30 we were off. There were 2 other boats going down. A 50ft narrowboat, a 25ft Dawncraft cruiser and ourselves. As we are only 26ft long we could all fit in together.
At 09:15 the lockie opened the lock 65 and we were ready to go. The little cruiser, who had set off just behind us was nowhere to be seen? Five minutes later he zoomed around the bend and into view. The red face bearded owner was all flustered. All he said was blasted carrier bags around me prop!
We made steady progress down the 18. No problems except all of us eventually were down the weed hatch clearing rubbish from our props. Mine was a strong fabric strap wrapped around the prop. The type you find on ruck sacks. Anyway, by 13:30 we cleared the 18. My 2 fellow boaters decided to stop at the New Islington Basin but we continued down the Rochdale 9.
It was only 16:00 when we reached Castlefields so decided to keep on going down the Bridgewater canal. By 19:30 we reached a nice countryside mooring near Dunham town bridge and stopped for the day. Yet another long day of 12 hours and we were ahead of schedule.
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