Radford

We like to do lock flights early in the morning.  Generally there are fewer other boats moving to cause delays and pairing up can be a mixed blessing.  Some of the most enjoyable, and instructive transits have been paired with other boats, but other times it can be stressful.  So we left to descend the Hatton flight early.  Pat at the helm, because of her sprained ankle.  To our dismay, the first pound was completely empty.   There was no obvious reason for this, so one must assume leaky gates.   So our first task was to fill it which took about 20 minutes.  Two locks down the BW Lockie arrived to deal with it.  This must be a regular problem.   He said that there was another pound at the Warwick end that would need checking.  This is another problem of leaving early.   We made good progress after that and saw no other boats coming down but passed about three lockings of other boats coming up near the bottom.   By the time we passed the two Cape Locks down onto the sump of the canal we were tired to say the least.  The gates are heavy and the paddle gear is very stiff.  We just worked one side.  We decided to call it a day at Leamington, so did some small shopping for food and moved on to a quiet section of the canal near Radford and the bottom of Fosse Locks where we will start to climb again tomorrow.