Day 49 – Caen Hill Marina to Seend Park

An easy half day, leaving Caen Hill at around 12pm after buying a bell for my bike in Devizes and having my lunch.

Engine

As you may have read, I fixed the engine myself.

Believe it or not, it actually runs better now.

In the new smoother Bonnie, I took off through the gates of Caen Hill along my merry way.

Double parking

It wasn’t long before I hit some locks. There’s just so many of them on this canal.

When I went to park the boat before the locks, so I could operate the paddles and open the gates, there was a 60ft wide beam sitting, covering all the bollards.

I thought ‘they may be in the locks’, unlikely. As I approached, it became clearer they weren’t in the locks. The boat was abandoned. Just left close to the locks, with a sign in the window with a phone number on it.

As I pulled up, there was no-where to put my boat, and I had to tie it to the side of this widebeam whilst I negotiated the lock. Continue reading “Day 49 – Caen Hill Marina to Seend Park”

Day 48 – Caen Hill Locks

Caen Hill Locks
Caen Hill Locks

Diesel hasn’t sorted the engine out, it now needs ‘bleeding’.

Whilst the engineer I spoke to yesterday agreed to make it for 10, his cat was taken ill in the night, and their were some complications and confusions.

These weren’t helped by the fact that my phone was flat and I couldn’t get a signal.

Whatever, I decided to pull the boat down to the next marina.

7 Locks away.

Caen Hill Marina

The boat is now moored in Caen Hill Marina.

I’ve had a chance to tidy her up a bit, and her batteries are charging.

Haven’t had chance to look at the engine – due to the weather.

I’ve got until 2 pm tomorrow to sort it out myself.

It ain’t a great or difficult job.

Bleeding a BMC marine engine

Bleeding is a case of getting all the air from the injection system, by means of manual pumping and turning the engine over.

When you run out fuel, it’s a kind of standard job you’ll find yourself, or someone else, doing.

I’ve got some additional kit and tips off other boaters, and TBH, I’d managed to bleed it through most of the bleed points on the BMC 18,000 engine. I need the power in the batteries to continue the job and finish off.

I’ll have another look at it tomorrow, when it’s not raining.

No pictures or map today.

Day 47 – Devizes – Caen Hill Locks

The biggest set of ‘staircase’ locks I’ve encountered.

29 Locks in 2 miles.

I believe, we got to lock 23, with anther 6 to go…

Ran out of fuel

I dipped the tank at the top, the day before I set out and there seemed to be a good 2 inches in the tank, which I thought would easily power me down to Trowbridge.

Turned out not to be the case. Continue reading “Day 47 – Devizes – Caen Hill Locks”

Day 46 – Honey Street to Devizes

Penultimate day on the boat…. I suspect.

Honey Street is only down the road from Devizes, saw this on the way. Milk Hill I believe they call it.

Wiltshire white horse
Wiltshire white horse

Weather is only just holding off rain, and cold.

Pass this contraption.

img_1933Filled with hi-vis CRT workers.

On the end it has a fork lift contraption and a massive rotating disk. It looks like something out of ‘Robot Wars’.

Honey Street Visitor moorings

I pass by the visitors moorings in Honey Street, which are outside the ‘Barge Inn’.

Impossible to find either on the OS map, or the internet. Probably about 300 yards from where I moored in someone’s back garden.

Kennet and Avon
Kennet and Avon – Devizes
Small Bream
Small Bream

Devizes

I intend to stay in Devizes for the next couple of days. Continue reading “Day 46 – Honey Street to Devizes”