We start our journey today at our
mooring between bridges 24 and 23 on the Lancaster canal we are about 40 minutes
from the Ribble Link navigations and the surrounding countryside is mainly rural
with the odd farm dotted beside the canal there is a tight 90-degree bend into the
Lancaster basin where there are three staircase locks to take us down into
Savick Brook. The original tall sculpture called Gauging the Ripple known locally
as the Ribble Piddler overlooked the first lock and marked the beginning of
the Ribble Link was replaced in 2014 by the one that you see today and
is dedicated to the navvies and engineers who built the canal. We descend
the remaining three locks into in Savick Brook We pass the golf course where you have
to duck if you see a ball coming and make our way through the winding brook Our trip today covers 15 miles from our
mooring on the Lancaster canal onto the Leeds & Liverpool Rufford branch. Making
our way with some difficulty through the narrow and shallow, winding, muddy Brook
towards the River Ribble and underneath the A 535 . We moor
for an hour on the pontoon before the sea lock From the sea lock we make our way down
towards the river, when we get to the river we turn right and make our way
against the tide until we reach the open stretch of water at Aslands Lamp. Here we make a hard left hand turn onto
the River Douglas and head towards Tarleton lock We wind our way down the River Douglas passing some open farmland heading
towards Tarleton Lock Once through Tarleton lock we pass the
moored boats and head on to the Rufford branch of the Leeds and Liverpool canal
where we moor in a lovely spot just before Fearns swingbridge. yeah good
morning everybody and welcome to our vlog you join us on a bit of a cloudy
day today yeah its just starting raining hasn’t it , it’s only spitting slightly don’t they don’t forecast rain
so we’re hoping it’s just kind of on the end of the weather front or something
because today’s the day isn’t it . Where are we honey? Don’t do that to me, today
is the day we go back across the Ribble Link. I was gonna say that but you stole it
from me. yeah we’re not well you are not particularly looking forward to it are
you. NO! so we’ll see how we go let’s hope the weather brightens up a little
bit .We’ve had mmm we’ve had a bit of a long conversation with one of the other
vloggers who went over the other day yeah hello. you know you are and
and I think Pats a bit more worried now
oh yeah just a little bit now I’m sure it’d be fine just watch and see so hopefully the weather will brighten
up and so we’ve got to be it’s we’ve got a be down at the the basin for 11
o’clock this morning yeah we’re just gonna set off. so we better shimmy on yeah
and so it’s gonna be a long day today it was a long day coming over and I think
it’s just going to be a just as long going back but different and quite hard work, for you. yeah I’m not looking forward to but
let’s see let’s see we might be quite surprised we’ll catch
up with you at Tarleton or in between oh yeah or in between keep
watching. See you soon. So we move down to here on Friday stayed here yesterday and had a
bit of a quiet relaxing day and today we’re moving on down to the Ribble Link.
It’s about what 45 minutes from here I think so left ourselves plenty of time
probably get there a bit early but that’s not a bad thing just had the most disturbing encounter
with a fisherman who said he was going to burn our boat because we asked him to
move his pole. So we’re just coming up to the turning
now just where you can see those railings ahead
is the entrance to the Lancaster Basin to go down to the Ribble Link. We are just waiting to go into the first
staircase look we’re on our own there’s four boats gone down before
us and one cancelled so we’re the last one in and on our own. so we’ve reversed into the first lock
and now we’re just reversing into the second staircase lock
and that’s just so that we can manoeuver when we get out it’s not a lot of room
to manoeuver when you get out of the locks so you have to go in backwards the locks backwards yeah very interesting going in a lock
backwards. day today to be doing this weather clouds look a little bit on the
miss up there so Pats just reversing out of the
second lock and into the third lock and you have to reverse in it’s because
you have to reverse out over to that over to that section there and then you
have to go that way under the little footbridge so as you can see there’s not
enough room to turn a 57 foot boat round so it’s better to reverse out and then
you’re facing the right way to go forwards . So we’re reversing out into the
space over there and that’s where we’ve got to go down thank you so goodbye the Lancaster and hello Savick Brook grounded a little bit under that bridge
there just as we came through but we were scraping the side that we weren’t
we were scraping the bottom so we’re a first lock already there’s only a few
minutes after coming out of the staircase lock and this time we have to
work the locks on our own. When we came up the CRT crew did all the locks for us
but of course we’re on our own so it’s just me. Eileen’s doing the first lock going on to
Savage Brooke these are not CRT manned all the time. Eileens jumped ship alleys jump ship while I take the boat down to the next lock.
She’s walking so I wasn’t expecting this
but I’ve gotta make some headway because we’re the last boat I am at the next lock, just waiting for Eileen to open this one up and then we’ll be
through this one. This is number three the CRT crew helped with lock number two but
we’re on our own for the next two locks because they’ve got to go down and sort
out the rest of the boats at the other end. so we’re just making our way through
some sections have been a bit windy and you can’t go fast anyway because then it’s a bit
of a steep bend here the golf course is just to the right
there and Pats using the bow thrusters just to bring the bow round
because it is a pretty steep Bend it’s been windy all the way.
There’s the bend we’ve just come round 90-degree Bend I think you can’t go too fast anyway otherwise
you drag the water out from underneath you
and then you don’t have any water There’s this thick weed just before the
lock look at that, it all gets round your prop and
then you are well and truly stuffed. I think there’s one lock but um I think we
get help help with that one it’s been pretty windy all the way down and although you can’t go very fast
there is a kind of a sense of urgency to get there because you know that you’ve
got to get to tarlatan Tarleton before the tide goes out. We just got stuck coming around that bend we were grounded for a bit
had to put a few revs on to get round the bend Oh, oops! it’s another tricky Bend and with the
shallowness of the water it’s not easy to get through to be fair sh*t Oops, we’re grounded Whoa! we’re tipping Don’t think we’re going to make it How are you feeling skipper? We are the last ones, we’ve got
stuck in the brook yeah we’ve had a couple of sticky moments haven’t we. Very we grounded completely and tipping over like that Oh! and I’ve got this one to deal with! so we’re just going through the sea lock
now we’re fourth of a convoy of five boats Lets see how we get on now So you can feel the incoming tide
already and we’re not even out on the main river River Ribble yet you can see how much we’re punching
against the tide There he goes! all right we’re just coming out to the
mouth of the river don’t know whether you can see how fast that’s flowing but
it’s flowing pretty fast we’ve just increased the revs Ahh! that’s not bad Patrick
no bad skipper Whoops!
Hey we weren’t dragged back too far and we’re out Where are we honey! the ripple thing the river Ribble yeah I am quivering. And you took the turn beautifully didn’t ya yeah but
you took it beautifully yeah we weren’t drag back too far. I saw one of the other boats he kind of went backwards uh uh I thought I’m not doing that and we didn’t Here comes his wake. Whoops!, OOPs We’re still get in his wake rocking a bit hello, how’s your journey across the
Ribble , this has been lovely this this section is beautiful it helps that it’s
a nice day it’s a bit windy so I’m a bit worried my hat’s gonna blow off but it’s
quite sunny so I need it . But we came out of Savick, Savage Brook really well and
yeah we’re just making our way up the Ribble, we are watching out for as Aslands lamp to do the left turn into the river Douglas
so but there are four boats ahead of us. so that’s four boats into the lock Two up first and then the next two
so it means we’ve got to hang around out here and wait for them for them to
ascend the look and for them to empty again How we doing skipper yeah I’ll be better when we’re in that lock. Don’t like waiting here. we’re just
waiting to go into Tarleton lock so we’re just on our way in
the last lock and we’re off out of the other side so back on the Leeds and Liverpool canal
the Rufford branch. That’s a gaggle of geese if ever I saw one So we’ve moored up here which is probably
about 30 minutes from Tarleton we decided we didn’t want some moor in
Tarleton and we moored here on the way up going towards the Ribble link and to
be honest its not too shabby that boat just there came over on the link with us a couple moored up in Tarleton. we passed
on the way and but we wanted to come a bit further out not too bad at all is it
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