From suevbutler@compuserve.com Sat May 1 11:29:35 1999 Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 13:11:38 -0400 From: sue butler Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org To: Messages for newsgroup Subject: Trip Report - Consall Forge to Wigan - Day 1 [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] Trip report - Jemima D on the Canal to Wigan Pier. Serious trip report junkies beware, this is a serious trip report, there is lots of on-topic stuff, in and amongst the off-topic chat. Given the literary fame of our destination - Wigan pier - it is appropriate that I advise you all that this is possibly a fictional report and any similarity to any real experience is purely coincidental. It should also be noted for background information that Neil had broken his collar bone three weeks earlier, and still had his arm in a sling . Day 1 - 19th Sept 98 - Consall Forge Mutual Friends It all started, dear reader, a few days before we were due to go away. We received a message that Jemima had battery problems. Fortunately for us, Jemima was moored on the Caldon and Mike Casswell was kind enough to take the batteries away and recharge them for us. The problem appeared to be the automatic bilge which was running continuously without 'bilging'! When we eventually arrived at Consall Forge on Saturday, Mike was already there, with batteries installed, and Jemima was once again in good heart. After settling in, and making arrangements to meet Mike the following morning, we watched a gang of boys jumping off the bridge into the river. We spent the evening generally winding down and enjoying the peace and quiet of Consall. Neil and I enjoyed a large meal at the Black Lion. All the discussions that have taken place here about the pub and it's isolation finally made sense, and we were intrigued to see a van parked in their garage, with no chance of them ever getting it back across the bridge in the foreseeable future. We were amazed how busy the pub got later in the evening and how many cars there were in the car park when we went back to Jemima. We also noticed another boat had tied up to one of our mooring pins, but didn't think much about it as we were tired. It was good to be back on Jemima again, and as always we soon fell into a deep sleep. Only to be rudely awakened a little later by a massive bang, followed by flashing lights. Fearing the worst we got up and Neil took his sling off so as not to look vulnerable. There were three or four cars in the car park flashing their lights and young lads shouting at us. We don't normally prejudge the situation, but we felt that we might be in serious trouble, and we knew our mobile phone was not receiving any signal because of the surrounding hills. I poked my head out, to find that Jemima was drifting across the river, and the lads started telling me how the other boat had pulled away without untying from our pin. They had been flashing their lights to try to warn us of our situation. They left all their lights on while I found that our rope had been snapped in half, and the pin dragged into the cut. After finding another rope and pin, running along the gunwale in my pyjamas I managed to get us back alongside and resecured. Once all that was done the lads all returned to their cars and with a cheery wave and a few toots on their horns they were off! They had enjoyed the spectacle I think, but it would have been much more tricky trying to sort it all out by torchlight! An eventful first night, and we had not yet begun our trip! Don't miss tomorrow's episode - The Famous Five go Boating! Sue and Neil Happy to be on Jemima D