Monday, May 02, 2016

This Twee Marina Appears to be Complete!

I took the first picture in December 2012. Surely this isn`t a CRT approved development, or perhaps it is.
As you can see there is room for two boats and the edging is far superior to some in this area. Assuming this has been done with full permission of CRT what do you think? 
© NB Oakfield, 2015
By now you might be thinking there's something familiar with this boat in a field. Perhaps the one you are thinking of is this boat, on the right pictured on the blog of NB Oakfield. It has been on the South Oxford dating back to 2015 so perhaps someone has cruised the North Oxford canal and copied the idea with a modification for exit and entrance. It would be interesting to know the full story behind these two sites.

We were moored up at Hawksbury Junction, waiting for the lousy weather to pass. The weather gods threw everything at us: pounding rain, gale force winds, and lashing hail with thinder and lightening punctuated by slim bands of sunshine for three days in a row. While moored there we encountered several boaters. 

The first was Logan on NB Sleepy Jean. He is a doctor-in-training who lives on a narrowboat. Jaq first met Logan in Warwick when she broke the ice and moved the boat last January before her knee surgery while I was in Warwick Hospital. We were pleased to pass his blue boat on our way to Hawksbury Junction. Logan and his room mate Kate move their boat to a new area whenever their hospital
Me and Logan come in from the hail.
rotations change. 


A few days later Logan was out jogging and caught up with us. After a stoveside natter to warm up, he was off again in the hail! Logan was kind enough to offer me a ride and some assistance collecting a rather large item from B & M. Keep an eye out for his boat and give him a wave. It is great to have someone from the younger generation joining the boater's community.

David and Lisa, two of our favorite boaters and bloggers!
Saturday morning dawned crisp and bright. The worst of the weather was supossed to have past so we thought we would make a break for it after breakfast. As Jaq was poaching eggs, a familiar boat appeared in the window. It was David and Lisa on What A Lark! We hadn't seen them for over two years, when we first made their acquaintance at Windsor during our truncated summer cruise on the Thames. We threw on some clothes and had a cuppa on their lovely boat, catching up, reminiscing, and sharing tips on places to see and good mooring spots. We hope our paths cross again later in summer. 

We finally got ourselves organized, cruised off to fill up with water, dump the rubbish before leaving Hawksbury while the weather was in our favour. The best laid plans...while Jaq walked over to a nearby shop for a Saturday paper, I got to nattering with a very nice couple walking their dogs along the towpath. They are thinking about getting a boat, and stopped to ask a few questins, as you do. Before long the four of us talked non-stop until the water tank filled and longer! By the time we said goodbye, the weather had changed again so we set off in our reindeer (for those who are not "in" the know, check out the lower paragraphs of Jaq's blog post on her blog So This is Love, for a clue!) while the weather pummeled us until we were blue with cold! Still, for us a bad day of boating beats a great day at nearly anything else!!

3 comments:

  1. Subject to the height of the local water table, I would think the CRT's main concern would be loss of water from the canal. Unless the new "marina" and all the surrounding land is heavy clay this construction could allow water to seep down into the subsoil. Canals were originally lined with clay which had to be "puddled" by teams of workers to make it impervious. These days modern water proof fabric liners are normally used instead. Short of draining the adjacent section of canal, I can't see how either could have been done at this site?

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  2. Hi Dave
    It was just dug out and flooded so it could well be leaking. With the size of the pound it would not notice.
    I do wonder about crt as this is twice. Can any of us buy some land and dig away.
    Les

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  3. I would think that the mooring with the blue boat has probably got C&RT permission. It looks like they bought, cleared and planted that piece of land adjoining the mooring.
    However the farmer who dug out a chunk of his field, allowed a boat in, then sealed it off from the canal with an earth bund had no such permission to cause damage to the canal bank!
    nb oakfield

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Jaqueline Biggs