Harnser Trip Report

Date -  19 Aug 2012
Day - Sunday
Start - 1000
End -1400

You will find our latest position and all our past travels with
photographs on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/

Last nights mooring was very quiet and we both got a good nights sleep. This morning the river was crystal
clear when I looked out of the side hatch, I am sure that will change a bit when the boats start moving.

Just before we set off a large, well for this river, barge came downstream, we had seen it moored just below
Hermitage Lock when we came through yesterday, he must have made an early start as he was probably only
doing just over 2 mph. After setting off it wasn’t long before we were catching him up, but I was quite happy
to travel at his speed so held well back and allowed another Narrowboat that caught us up to pass and sit
behind him. We saw very little traffic for the first hour or so, then we all met a cruiser, as the cruiser came
round the bend the lady on the bows was pointing to her left, so thinking she thought they were short of room I
pulled further to my right, she started pointing more vigourously so I , maybe she wants me to go the wrong
side of her so they can go to her left, so started to swing to my left, at which point the cruiser started
swinging his bow to my left. At this point I stopped and backed up letting him go where he wanted, he when the
correct side of me in the end and as he passed and thanked me he was complaining that big boats like that
shouldn’t be allowed on the river as they were far to big and had caused him to go aground. We plodded on our
merry way at 2.5 mph until  we reached a straight wide section just before Twentypence Bridge, where he
waved us passed, now he may only been doing 2 mph but the best I could manage was probably just over 4 mph so we
were running out of river by the time I got through.

The floating fern weed was completely covering the river and is multiplying at quite a rate. It didn’t
cause us any problem but boats with raw water cooling are suffering.
As we approached the EA visitor moorings just before Popes Corner I spotted Graham and Jill moored there so
we pulled alongside for an hour or so and helped them drink some beer. While we were there the barge came