"Lets stay together"

All rather excited this morning,  we are all going out onto the tidal stretch of the river Trent.  We were all up early, the dogs walked and life jackets on,  well almost all had their jackets on.

The lock doors opened and we moved forward, the lock keeper had another boat to come in behind so we all breasted up at the front.

So L to R   Sheila Margaret and Lesley  (Only Sheila without a jacket here but she soon put hers on.)

Here come the Boys, L to R Derek, Geoff Joe and my David.  Looks warm doesn't it?

The gates opened and away we went, no racing today, it had been decided by Group Captain Geoff (So called as he is the only one who has been here before),   decided that we would all stick in close formation as its tidal, well I think that was the reason.

Hard to see but directly intron of one another Seyella, then Clarence, then Yarwood then tail end Charlie (us)

Looking behind at the zonking great weir here at Cromwell Lock

All in close formation

Now it looked warm, but let me tell you it started cold and ended up bloody freezing. You might notice all the ladies were in their boats,  David gets bored and lonely so I stay up with him, well going off to make coffee.  Did I say it was cold?
The tidal stretch is über bendy, so the wind stays with you and is alternatively in your face then behind you, then pushing you off course.
Then this came past

I used to fancy having a go at this.... 

The wash from this teeny made us fairly bounce!

This crew had full ski wear on

This was interesting, there were extensive buildings.  To do with malting I wondered...

So this stretch was about 17 miles long approximately and we had a time to arrive by at Torksey Lock if we were late, the tide would have been too low for us to have got into the lock and we would have to moor outside the lock on the floating pontoons with only the very steep piling walls to look at until the evening when the tide changed and came in again to "Float" us over the cill and into the lock.

Look at our angle, we were being carried somewhat down river...

All safely made the turn you can see.... 
I helpfully suggested to David "Look darling, we're missing it... " 
"Its fine", he said then an "Oh shit!" and whacked on the juice a bit, we did get a wee bit closer to that grass bank.  
Green light from the lock and Bish Bash Bosh we are all in.

Last ones in.  Notice the triple gate arrangement.

Group Captain on his roof, Lesley actually holding hers and my boat's ropes, I was holding a dangly bit between our two boats

David and Joe at the rear clinging on, still room for one more small one in-between 

As we left, I called out a cheery thank you to the lock keeper, he replied that it was HIS pleasure to have his locked filled with narrowboats as it docent happen very often.  
Nice.
Out we crept past lots of moored cruisers (who make me nervous) and on around the corner where we all had space to moor up in a row.  Straight inside for hot broccoli and stilton soup, heating on and a bit of a thawing out session.