Piglet: Piglet Meets Ice, 3rd March 2013

Once again the diesel heater came on as it should, but shut itself off after about 90 minutes which was annoying.  However this wasn't a problem as we were on landline electrics so the immersion heater was heating the hot water.

I got up and went to light the fire in the front cabin to get this area warm.  Opening the curtains something didn't quite seem right.  The water around the boat wasn't moving!  This was the first time I'd been on a narrowboat in ice.

Anyway, it was nice being able to have a hot shower at last now the water tank was full.

Becky got up, had a shower and we both had breakfast discussing what to do that day.  One suggestion was go to look around Daventry and go out boating for the day tomorrow.  I went to look at the canal and found that the ice was thicker there than in the marina.

Shortly afterwards a crashing noise was heard coming along from the direction of the bottom lock and a boat appeared breaking its way through the ice.  I figured as the locks were shut, the stretch past the marina would be little used so to see a boat on it breaking the ice suggested to me that the canal around the Turn would have more traffic so would already have a path through the ice.

We decided to go and head out to the Folly at Napton.

While I was getting the boat ready a boat left its marina mooring and broke a path through the ice.  There was no excuse now.

I ran the engine in forward gear while still on the mooring and this broke the ice behind us so we could reverse out.  I will mention that to the owners of the boat next to ours as they had difficulty in January reversing out in ice.

We set off at 11am and reversing out wasn't a problem.  As we took a slightly different line through the marina to the previous boat you could hear the ice scraping against moored boats as we passed.  It was quite odd to see ducks stood on the ice either side of us as we went down the narrow path carved by the previous boat.

Turning on to the main canal wasn't a problem and we followed the path through the ice past the marina entrance.  Here we saw the boat that had come past earlier so unless something else had moved the ice would only have been broken up to this point. Crunch crunch crunch could be heard as we encountered our first bit of properly frozen canal.  Past Braunston Road Bridge and the Boat House pub the canal was free of ice which was a relief.

Turning on to the Oxford Canal it was obvious no boat had been before us that morning as the ice was right across the canal and as far as I could see into the distance.  It was too late now to turn back so we continued crunching our way forward.  The noise was quite loud from the back of the boat and at the front it was amazing.

As we approached the cutting at Wolfamcote the ice got thicker but we still had no problem breaking it.  Had it got much worse I planned to turn around but it got easier when we got to the more exposed section where the wind was breaking the ice up a bit.  We met a couple of boats coming the other way so knew from here the channel would be clear.

Eventually the ice cleared altogether.  Before Wigram's Turn (the junction where the Grand Union Canal splits from the Oxford and heads north) we met Nick Wolfe's 'Aldgate'.

Approaching the junction we saw 2 boats come out of the Grand Union and turn right in front of us.  I hoped these weren't going to moor at Napton as the visitor moorings there are busy at the quietest of times.

As we approached the Bridge Inn the lead boat winded round so we held against a boat on the moorings until they had finished turning.  Once they had turned, the 2nd boat did the same.  Once the 2 boats had moored up we continued on our way but still couldn't decided if the Bridge Inn was open or not.

As usual there were boats on the moorings at Napton so we winded and backed up towards the locks a bit to moor in a space next to the wooden ice breaker 'Pelican'.  Having moored up we decided to go for a couple of drinks then head back just in case the ice was bad the next morning.

We arrived at the Folly and could see it was busy with Sunday lunches so we bought our drinks and sat down on a pew in the lower room.  We could see the lunches looked really good and once the landlord had wafted a few under our noses on the way from the kitchen we decided to stay moored at Napton that night and have lunch in the pub and we weren't disappointed.  Becky had roast beef and I had roast pork and it was lovely!  We even managed to have desserts.

After a couple of hours we returned to Piglet and watched TV for the rest of the evening.