Enjoying Ely market place before our voyage
Enjoying Ely market place before our voyage

Leaving Ely after some leisure time visiting the cathedral and shop and then passing the Little Oue junction and arriving at Denver and locking through Denver Sluice to spend the night on the seaward pontoon ready for our sea trip to Grimsby.

Rafts of weed from the Wissey chocked the water intakes which had to be blown clear. It was a calm and restful night winds forecast of only force 2-3 and very slight and calm seas which suited us.

Our last day in Ely which Diana used to good effect, taking the girls into town again. We all had morning coffee together at the Boathouse cafe and then Di took Della to the Ely Cathedral shop to spend some of her crew money whilst Debbie went on her own to the library to find and read another "Sweet Valley High" book and she has now read about 45 out of 85 of them. Della is now also hooked on the "Sweet Valley Kids". They found these for the first time during our trip to America and they then renewed their acquaintance with them in the English libraries when finding them in the "young adults" section.

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Diana was also getting more of the laundry done and then the rest of the family went swimming again whilst I stayed on the boat and installed an extension to the VHF aerial. It has been fixed low down and shielded by the mast and advice from Ned Larkin supported my view that it would benefit greatly from this upgrade. Conversations with the Denver lock-keeper resulted in the decision to cruise down to Denver today and be locked through to spend the night on the pontoons below on the tidal section. This would allow us to leave earlier in the morning than the others for our passage to Grimsby. The forecasts were still excellent with winds of only force 2-3 and very slight or calm sea which suited us.

The trip down river went quite well in fine weather until we passed the tributaries when rafts of floating weed became more of a problem. First the logs were affected and then the starboard engine was overheating as we pulled into Denver and we found that its cooling water intake was blocked with weed.  Working against time as we waited for our locking; we struggled with this weed as it was solidly sucked into the pipe. In the end the technique of blowing down the tube with the inflatable pump and working the gate valve to cut off the weed in the pipe forced it out but it was quite a job to do. We locked through on a still and fine evening and moored on the upstream end of the pontoon as river downstream of the lock shoals with mud which stretches right across the river and catches the unwary. It was a calm and restful night, but sleep is always fitful on the eve of a sea trip.