As tempting as it was to stay the night in Ely we only called in briefly to top-up the gas and for
abit of pub grub. Anyone seeing The Great
Ouse from here would be mighty impressed with the
idyllic setting. However as soon as we left the towns
picturesque waterfront I found the hours of cruising this wide expanse of water with its high flood banks a little
monotonous and we nick named the river the 'The Great Snooze!'
Littleport was unusual, home to Harley or Davidson or maybe both? The town was proud of its motorcycle connection and had an impressive metal sculpture in the town. I've never been to a place with more takeaways and there seemed to be a chip shop, a curry house or a rotating kebab on every street corner.
We left Littleport on another cloudless morning and continued cruising until we reached Denver Sluice. This is monster lock, or a least it looks it as you approach. Locking was 3pm as we had a wait for the tide. This gave us an afternoon to explore and I got chatting with an American professor on a hire boat from March. He was bringing his grandchildren to the UK for their first visit. He'd run into a 'nice chap' in Ely cathedral. 'Paddy Ashdown... was his name'. They'd talked politics; the Obama election and so on. I found this all very amusing.
'Thursdays Child' shared the lock with one smaller boat, I think the polite way to describe it would be rustic. On board a chap from Derby, my home town and his small dog who wore an orange life vest. He explained his wife wasn't into boating and stayed at home while he went 'walkabout'. The last time he'd seen her was Christmas - it was now June!
As the lock emptied and the guillotine gates raised I pushed the throttle and ventured out on this tidal stretch of The Ouse. The current was strong - very strong. For a while we struggled to make ground against the incoming tide but slowly and surely we made our way up the mile or so to Saltlers Lode. It was a sharp turning left into the lock and to be honest I very nearly missed it and that would mean heading out to sea. Making the turn the current caught us and I messed up big time. We were being pushed back up the river and the only thing I could do was to swing the boat round and attempt the turning again. This time I increased the revs and it was still a messy but I made it in. The lock keeper reassured me I wasn't the first to make this mistake.
Salter Lode was a lock which had been cause for concern. For months they'd been a stoppage as a new lock gate was brought over from Belguim. All had not gone smoothly and soon after it was fitted it had malfunctioned and boaters had been complaining on the net how they'd been stuck for days while emergency repair work was carried out. I watched as the shiny new gate slid down, it was incredibly slow taking around 6 minutes to lower. I kept my fingers crossed until I heard the gate 'clunk' shut.
Entering The Middle Levels was a like the calm after the storm and the afternoon sun turned into warm evening light. We put the kettle on and enjoyed a cuppa soaking up this tranquil waterway. We had plans to make March that night however we soon
realised this was never going to happen. We decided on
Upwell or
Outwell instead. We cruised through
Outwell and progress was slow through a very narrow waterway with big clumps of reeds. Our American friends had caught us up and I pulled over to let them overtake - big mistake. We grounded and Andy pushed hard on the bank with the barge pole. Soon after it was my turn to get us on the move as I was forced to
detangle reeds from around the prop. We pressed on, I'd phone through and the lock keeper advised us she was out in the morning and if we didn't want a delay she could help us through before dusk.
We arrived at Marmot Priory lock at sundown and the Americans were waiting in the lock making small talk with the lady lock keeper -
Marmite and Digestive Biscuits were the topic, two things they'd never
encountered before. They too decided March was out of reach tonight and as they were first they took moorings on the right. We attached ourselves to a
work boat and hammered a stake into the ground on the steepest of embankments. Making the pub that night would be a challenge, however the lock keeper had offered us a lift!
When buying the boat I asked if there everything we needed on board: a windlass, rope, full gas bottle etc, 'of course' was the reply and indeed TC was very well equipped. Unlucky for us there was one vital piece of equipment missing. It'd taken us around 40 minutes to reach the first lock. A huge electric 
We waited around for ten minutes or so before I bit the bullet and reversed the boat back out of the lock. This was not turning into my best days boating and around half an hour later later we were back to where we'd started from. Andy and I split up, he attempted to wake the landlord of the local where we'd been drinking the night before and I spotted one lonely figure on the far side of the marina. I ran round and greeted him out of breath explaining our predicament. 'It's your lucky day' he replied, I looked bemused, 'I work for The Enviroment Agency and I've two keys, if you wait here you can have one!' Sometimes in life you really do get lucky and this was one of those occasions. I thanked him and asked him if he wanted payment to which he declined. What a gent! Andy apologised to the landlord who was on the phone to a boating mate asking him to get out of bed and get over here with a key..!! We made a sharp exit, set sail... again! and this time took a steady pace back up to the first lock and onto our destination for the night; 
Well, we did encounter on one half submerged 
.JPG)
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