Abingdon

Firstly a picture from late yesterday afternoon.  Denise had looked out of the widow whilst doing the washing-up and called me to have a look at what she had seen:

Deer feeding by the riverside

 A fairly short journey today down the Thames in sunny but cold weather.

We set off earlier than usual this morning as we wanted to maximise the chances of finding mooring space at our intended destination of Abingdon where we needed to be in easy walking distance of the town centre for shopping.  

First point of interest was Iffley lock where we were able to operate the controls without any problems.  The lock keeper, who also oversees the next lock at Sandford, turned up and gave helpful advice on the operation of the locks.

Two points were very relevent to us.  Unlike the canals the standard practice is to leave the sluices (equivalent to paddles on the canals) open when leaving. The reason is that with the automated boater operation system opening the sluices starts a 5-10 minute wait for the lock to fill or empty, but the lock would already be at the required level.

Secondly, it is now the law that boats in the Thames locks must be roped up to the lock side under the control of the crew both at the bow and the stern. Which implies you need one person at the bow, a second at the stern and a third to operate the lock. What happens if you only have 2 crew, or even just one?  Apparently it is acceptable to have a very long rope at the bow going up to the bollards on the lock side and then down to a crew member at the stern.  For Densie this would require a rope perhaps 90 foot long.  Our ropes are each 30 foot long so we would need to tie three of the together!  So far we have only been descending when there is very little turbulence and  have managed with a single centre rope (illegally).  Ascending the large Thames locks is very dfferent.  We will see....

Fortunately by the time we reached Sanford Lock the guy we had met at Iffley had arrived and he operated the lock for us.  At the final lock just above Abingdon there was also a lock keper in attendance.

Cruising down the Thames below Oxford

Between the locks the journey was certainly very pleasant and we were often traveling at 3.5-4 mph compared with the 2.5 mph we normally cruised at on the canals.  The scenary was attractive but beyond that there was little of interest, though we did see our first kingfisher of the journey.

Moored at Abingdon

We arrived at Abingdon at lunchtime and were delighted to fnd an empty mooring exactly where we wanted. By early afternoon all the space we could see had been taken.

6.68 miles 3locks 2 hours 50 minutes cruising.