I slept for 9 solid hours last night – that doesn’t happen very often!
We spent the morning either waiting for phone calls or making
them. Between Dot and us the phone waves
must have been buzzing. Dot was the
first to get the call to say that they were going round the corner onto the Wey
and to TLC at Parvis Wharf where Ewn ha Cul would have her back end lifted out
of the water to inspect the prop. Just
after they left we got the call to say that we were to go too so we set off for
the half miles trip. We arrived and
almost immediately Gordon got the nod to take his boat under the bridge to the
crane. TLC is run by Stuart and Julia
and they were absolute stars as they had had to move four boats and stop
working on other boats to sort us out.
As Ewn ha Cul came out of the water we could see the damage to the prop
– it’s a wonder that Gordon had managed to get down six locks on Tuesday! The engineer, Colin, took the prop off, the
boat was lowered back into the water and then poled back under the bridge to
where we were moored.
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That doesn't look too good |
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Colin taking the prop off |
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That doesn't look too good! |
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Ewn ha Cul being poled back to her mooring |
Next it was Mary H’s turn. We
knew our prop wasn’t as badly damaged as Gordon’s but it really needed to be
checked after such a thump – we couldn’t risk it falling off as we went down
the Thames! Richard steered her into the
slings and slowly she had the indignity of having her bottom raised out of the
water for all to see!! We could see
immediately that there was no damage and Richard and I heaved a big sigh of
relief. Colin got into the water and
checked that everything was OK and nothing was out of place or not true. All was good :-)
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Are my flowers safe? |
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Where did that plastic bag come from? |
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Colin getting wet again! |
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The indignity of having one's bottom in the air |
Mary H was lowered back into the water and we returned to our
mooring. We are moored just down from
the Byfleet Boating Club on their moorings which are great and we aren’t
upsetting anyone. (Stuart did check with
them first that this was OK!)
In the evening we were supposed to have been meeting up with old
friends in Woking but, of course, that all had to be changed. Steve and Linda came to the boat and then we
walked into Byfleet to go to The Plough for a meal with Dot and Gordon. We had a great evening with lots of chat but
sadly we felt that the food wasn’t really up to much though Richard said the
Doombar was excellent!
It was a nice ending to a stressful day made worse by some very sad
news from home.
0.76 miles
0 locks
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