Today we drove over to our old moorings at High Line Yachting on the dear old Slough Arm. We'll be returning there to moor Herbie over winter from the beginning of November, hopefully allowing us sorties into London providing the visitor moorings in Paddington have space.
In recent years the Slough Arm has been un-navigable at this time of year because it gets choked with weed and a number of other bloggers have reported this summer that that has indeed been the case. However I'm pleased to pass on the news that CRT have finally pulled their fingers out and sent weed cutters down there. Not just the superficial weed cut they have done in recent years, but a proper job taking a couple of weeks or so we're told. So now you can get down the arm in your boat, which is good news for the Slough Canal Festival in a couple of weeks time, although I fear the weed cutting may have come too late for them. So many boats have said 'never again' after attempting the trip in the past that I wouldn't bet on more than two or three boats turning up. A pity because its a nice little show and popular with local residents.
The arm was due to be dredged this year, but that has not happened, perhaps because they had to spend all their money on repairing a busted bridge - now fixed.
Should you be passing the end of the arm, don't look the other way, go on down. At least as far as the second winding hole about four miles down, it's a lovely stretch of canal as my banner photo at the top of this blog shows. I think it's true to say that we have seen more kingfishers down there than on any other stretch of canal.
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5 comments:
Will you see your old neighbours when you're there? I forget precisely, but wasn't it Geoff who bought the widebeam Amy? Or something like that. He stopped blogging then, but if you see them, wish them well from me.
We certainly will Val, in fact Geoff's wife Laura and the two little girls were there yesterday when we called in. They are still on Amy. Geoff is a nice guy and we are looking forward to seeing him again.
BTW you asked about my new lens - a tamron 70-300mm for my canon DSLR. I may do a post about it when I have some good pictures to show.
FYI it took our 60' self build about 6-7 hrs to get from Uxbridge boat yard to the basin on the Slough arm and then up to the festival pointing the right way.
A lot of the weed has been cut at water level so of no help to boaters what so ever - and breath :)
Just thought you might like to know
Very sorry to hear that Julie, especially if my post encouraged you to have a go. What a disappointment. The moorers at HLY told me it was clear, but then most of them never move.
No we planned to go anyway Neil, every year we say never again but think we might mean it this time :)
They just need to join it to the Thames and there would be loads of movement to keep it clear - as she steps out of cloud cuckoo land!
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