What a day!
A nice bright morning though we did have a drizzle shower. It was just over an hour to the bottom of
Stoke Bruerne Locks where we filled with water before going up.
We shared the locks with Christian and Emily on A2B with their little
dog, Toby. Up through the first lock
then disaster happened at the second. I
was just starting to raise the paddle to empty the lock when I noticed a boat
coming down so I quickly went to lower the paddle. I wasn’t looking and knocked
poor Muffin off the beam. He fell about
12 feet into turbulent water as the gates were leaking so badly and I hadn’t
completely wound the paddle down. I ran
down the steps to encourage him to swim to me but the turbulence wasn’t having
any of it. Twice he went under completely and disappeared from sight for what
seemed ages and I could see that he was getting tired. I started taking my clothes off to go in the
water but Emily said she would go in. It
was at this stage that I realised that the paddle was still up a bit so I went
up, took the ratchet off and let it go down on its own – of course this was one
of those paddles that didn’t want to go down on its own! Before I knew it Emily was in the water and
swimming over to Muffin. She managed to
give him a push which seemed to free him from the bubbling water. I grabbed Muffin’s nose and then his harness
and hauled him out. Fortunately, Richard
came along at that moment as I had been shouting at him and between us we
hauled Emily out too. Muffin coughed and
spluttered a bit then rolled furiously on the grass.
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| Muffin with his heroine |
Both boats pulled over after the fifth lock and I rang a local vet who
said that we were to take him immediately as he had been under so many
times. The vet gave me two pet friendly
taxi numbers but both were busy however we discovered that there was a bus from
Stoke Bruerne to Towcester in 20 minutes so it was a quick walk up to the
village. We had no idea where we were
going but a man at the bus stop said that he would show us where to get off. We then had a 10 minute walk up to the vets
where Muffin saw a vet straight away. He
has a slight crackling in one lung so we have anti-biotics and
anti-inflammatories in case the water in his lung is nasty. We sat on a seat outside the vets while I tried
to find a taxi to take us home when a lady came over and said that she would
take us to Stoke Bruerne! She lives near
the vets so came out of her way for us.
Not only that but she has given us her phone number in case Muffin needs
to go back to the vets over the weekend.
We got back to boat and I collapsed.
It had taken three locks for me to stop shaking but all I could see what
the swirling water and no sign of Muffin – even now (the next day) I can still
see that vision.
We walked back to the lock to have a look and also to rescue the
aluminium windlass that I dropped in the water during the fracas. Fortunately, it was Jim’s windlass that he
had left with us and it has two jubilee clips on so the Sea Searcher magnet
managed to pick it up. Our usual
windlass is also aluminium but doesn’t have jubilee clips on it – it will have
now!! These two photos give you some
idea of how far Muffin fell. The water
isn’t very turbulent as, of course, the paddles were shut.
We took Christian and Emily to The Navigation for a meal – it was the
least we could do. They are lovely
people and Richard and I can’t thank Emily enough for her selfless and brave
action. Also to the man at the bus stop
and Gail (who drove us back). We both
feel gobsmacked at the amount of help given to us by total strangers.
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| Christian and Emily (Toby didn’t want his photo taken!) |
4.13 miles
5 locks
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