Before we commenced cruising this morning we were very pleased to receive confirmation our booking request for Little Venice had been approved . Sarah (rembrandtgardens@gmail.com) sent us an email confirming we had a mooring for 6 nights commencing Thursday 2 April. Rembrandt Gardens are managing the moorings in Little Venice on behalf of CRT. The prerequisites for the booking included:
- Boat Name
- Index Number
- BSS & Insurance details
- Postal Address
- Telephone Number
The above is required for a CRT license check.
Now we have conformed dates it will be possible to finalise our cruising plans prior to taking the mooring. The first task was to reverse back to the water point and top up the tank. Further reversing allowed us to turn Into the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal and start heading east. Just beyond the junction are a line of boats on CRT offside long term moorings. An interesting Tjalk was among them.
A clog type bow, flat bottom, with mast that folds down and side keel boards. Designed to operate in shallow coastal waters.
Paul B. The 7 Day moorings immediately before Uxbridge Road Bridge (20) still have a CRT sign but there are no mooring rings or bollards against the concrete edge. Nor is there room to drive in a pin. That makes it almost impossible to moor there!
Around the bend we came upon a kind gentleman feeding his stale bread to the swans. Well perhaps not so kind as he threw the plastic bread bag into the canal as he departed. Actually the canal here was full of plastic bread bags.
We cruised on up to Willowtree Marina for a pump out. The facilities are outside the marina on the cut which makes access easy. It was an exceptionally good pump out. Probably the best we have had to date. I mentioned the amount of rubbish in the canal and the staff member told me that on occasions there is so much rubbish in the water it almost looks like you could walk across the canal. He was a local boater and a mine of information which we readily tapped into.
There are eight days to fill before reaching Little Venice and that’s only 3.5 hours away. Consequentially we decided to moor against the park just east of the marina.
Jan took a few photos of the local area whilst I disappeared into the engine compartment to get a first coat of primer around the stern tube. Thank heaven for aerosol paint!
5 comments :
So why no selfie of you upside down with an aerosol can, Tom? An opportunity missed, Jan!
I remember the cut near Hayes being very full of plastic bags of rubbish (as per my comment on a recent post) around that area. A bit of a bummer really that people see the canal as a rubbish tip.
Cheers, M
Probably because all the spraying has yet to be finished! :-)
I would have expected the Lee Mean Cleaning Machine to be used more frequently rather than being moored on the junction!
The feeding of birds is a cultural especially in the Southall area. It has been a problem for some time. At the two canalside Sainsbury stores there are signs in six languages not to feed the birds but you often see people come straight out of the store with unopened bread which they throw on wholesale. Unfortunately they do not seem to understand that cheap white sliced is not actually good for them and creates a nuisance. Ugh!
Mike,
Unfortunately a number of them then thrown the plastic bag into the canal after the bread! Double Ugh!
They don't always bother to take the broad out of the bag either. Just to make sure the birds ruin their insides on the plastic.
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