River Great Ouse:St Neots

As a result of our diesel tank washout we were late leaving St Ives.  Our first lock was being hosted by a team from the Environment Agency as following the floods a sand bar has built up across the approach to the lock landing.  They were there trying to set up a temporary barrier to warn boaters, but had only managed thus far to set up two buoys, a red and a green, the former at the deepwater end of the bar and the green near the bank.   Now these are the colours for channel markers: keep red to port and green to starboard when going upstream, so they would direct the boater right onto the sand bar.   They didn't seem to understand what I was trying to say but just said that they were having to use whatever they had.  The weather was fine and the warmest yet but the wind was getting up again.   We had similar problems as previously controlling the boat with exposed lock landings and some curious approaches as a result. Might have to do a bit more training.   However, we made good progress and passed through St Neots to moor finally at Waterside Park for the night.