About Me

I started boating in 1982 with a hire boat holiday.  You like it or loathe it.  I liked it and took various holidays from then until eventually buying a narrowboat in 1990.

From 1990 until 2004, I spent most summer weekends boating around the Inland Waterways system.  'Weekending' involves dashing off on Friday night to wherever the boat was left last week, two days of pleasant cruising and finally the mad rush back down the M1 on Sunday evening ready for work the next day.  This went on until I sold my boat in 2004.

Since 2004 I have continued boating with hire boats & with friends, for several weeks each year, and have recently begun to do boat moving jobs as a way of doing something I still enjoy and getting paid for doing it.  Fortunately, I always used to do long days, and did a lot of single-handed boating, so boat moving suits me quite well.  It is not for the faint hearted. and would not be everyone's cup of tea, as it is not as relaxed as normal cruising.

I have travelled to most parts of the Inland Waterways system, including:

Odiham on the Basingstoke Canal (we were at the re-opening),
Guildford on the River Wey,
Bristol Docks via the Kennet & Avon,
Limehouse to Lechlade on the Thames (but not in one go),
Sharpness on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal,
Llangollen,
Preston Brook via the Shropshire Union, up the Bridgewater and over the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to Leeds,
Garstang on the Lancaster Canal via the Ribble Link,
York & Ripon via the Trent, Ouse & Ure,
Lincoln on the Fossdyke,
Peterborough on the Nene and on to Bedford and Cambridge on the Ouse and Cam,
Hertford and Bishops Stortford on the Lee & Stort,
Birmingham Canal Navigations (but not quite all of them),
Parts of the Norfolk Broads.

There are a few little gaps I would like to fill, in particular Trent Falls.