Hazards of the Canal

Yesterday afternoon Benbow came down and moored along from us.  We did not see Fiona or David until we passed them this morning on our way to Uxbridge.



Whilst I was taking the Elsan for a trip Marnie was setting off in our direction so she waited for us at the first lock and we shared locks down to Uxbridge with her.
We had to visit Uxbridge Boats to organise the materials for blacking Gecko in May back at P&S Marine in Croxley. Marnie, whose name I learned is really Deborah, was arranging some surgery for her boat which she has named Nippit. (She will remain Marnie as far as we are concerned.)  
At Cowley lock we realised that we are not the only people who do things backwards.

This classroom boat emptied Cowley lock, which was ready for us to descend when we had taken on water, and came up in it........  Then they emptied it and reversed out again.!Apparently they did not have time to travel on to the next winding hole but wanted to show the children how a lock works. So we then had to refill the lock before we could resume our journey.
When we had Gecko built we tried to eliminate the two greatest hazards after sinking, vis: gas leaks and stove fires.  Thus we have neither gas nor solid fuel installations.
However there are hazards on the canal we did not take into account -

King Kong swinging down from a gantry........

Or man-eating alligators 







We had two sets of unexpected visitors during the day. At Uxbridge lock a couple of Chinese ladies came for a ride on Gecko and after mooring below Cowley lock a lady with her two children came aboard for a guided tour. The ladies from Taiwan were as impressed with the boat as they were with the fact that we know their home town of Tao Yuan, having visited it two years ago.