I’ve mostly been on boats in the UK, though occasionally been on pleasure boats abroad, such as cruise to Egypt, channel ferry, and a passenger pleasure boat through Paris. I wasn’t set up with time lapse equipment at those times, so sadly no footage. However, Kevin a fellow time lapse boater, sent me a link to his trip on a French passenger boat, so thought I’d share it.

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Some people are really keen on collecting domain names, some even make a profitable enterprise out of it, others don’t get what all the fuss is about. Back in the day when I was looking to start up this blog I was looking for a domain - well initially I had it on a free domain but when that collapsed I realised I needed two things, firstly web space that wasn’t subject to the whim of an individual offering a freebie - so really a paid service, but more important my own domain name so that if I did, or was forced to, change web space providers then I wouldn’t have to start again with a new domain name somewhere.

Looking around at other people’s canal related blogs I saw many were www.nbboatname .com or .co.uk etc, so I considered www.nbsilhouette.com though others went for dropping the nb, such as grannybuttons.com, but unfortunately someone had pipped me to the post of www.silhouette.com or .co.uk. Though really people might find silhouette hard to spell correctly(sounds but some people do), so on a whim I thought “I wonder what generic canal related names are still available?” as this might prove more likely that random people could stumble across the site (other than me name dropping on several forums (hmm -ums isn’t usually the plural of an -um word, but that’s another issue) which may not always be welcome) and found, somewhat astoundingly, that narrowboat.org.uk was still available. I doubt it narrowboat.com will ever forget to be re-registered, but I’m happy with my dot-org-dot-uk.

However, I wonder if I’ve fluked it again…. Ol’ grannybuttons has been pondering short URL’s, as I previously commented on but non-memorable short URL’s or domains are of limited use. The idea of registering boat numbers, will give you a domain that’s likely to be unregistered, but could also be one that’s easily forgot by that other boater you’ve just passed who you mentioned it to! You could try http://www.80at.com/ or http://www.8oat.com/ if someone hadn’t got there first (how dare they not even use it for a proper site!!). Anyway, what I was going to say was granny’s post got me thinking a “what if …” and I really expected to be disappointed, but was pleasantly surprised to see no one had registered the domain that popped in my head.

W hat domain is that? Ooo you’ll have to wait as it takes 24 hours to complete the registration! Apparently?

A bright Sunday morning, and relatively quiet. Although the canal goes through Warwick, it skirts round the centre so shielding you from most of the city. So you’ve cast off and steering on a pleasant morning watching the world go by and enjoying a coffee. A couple of locks appear accompanied by a pub, The Cape of Good Hope, and you’ve exchanged pleasantries with a few oncoming boats - oh a nice day to cruise. Off around the corner of Budbrooke Junction we travel and then some more locks appear. A few locks, can’t harm, so through one … lock number 26 Hatton Bottom Lock. Oh, must be a few together then, oh yes I can see a second just ahead. Through the second we went, unaccompanied as it seems to be no boats around, then round the corner where we see the 3rd, 4th, and 5th!

Well onwards we press, looking forwards to the next lock. Up the 6th, 7th, and 8th. We seem to be in our stride now, so on to the 9th, 10, and then into the 11th - the half way point in this lock flight. We then hear a couple of shouts from behind and see a boat coming up a couple of locks behind us! Neither of us are accompanied, so we wait - may as well lock up together for the remaining ten locks. Apparently they’d spied us, but were unable to catch us up close enough to be heard. Hmm, I guess we were too much looking forward, than back! Two boat crews make locking easier, which is good because these ten lock are close together. With one crew opening a gate whilst the other goes onto the next we make short shift work of these. Once through we bid farewell to the other boat as its time for us to stop for lunch, quiet well timed because its started to rain. So we sit inside watching the ducks go by and have a leisurely lunch. Once the rain stops, we set off through the cutting to Shrewley Tunnel. The showers return once through the tunnel, but not enough to dampen our enthusiasm to carry on. Its just me, my mac, and a tiller against the rain onslaughts.

The showers don’t last too long and we’re soon approaching Kingswood Junction. Time to leave the Grand Union Canal for the Stratford-on-Avon, with its narrow locks and barrel-roof cottages. This seems to be a quiet section of canal, with the only boat we met was at the first lock when we turned onto the canal - though we did see another several locks down who moored for the evening before we reached them. Once we got to Lowsonford, the first place with a pub after coming onto the Stratford, we too decided to moor for the night.

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For our May 2008 canal cruise we planned on going from Calcutt to Tewkesbury by going down the River Avon and back up the Severn. Day 0 we arrived late at the boat and decided to just pop up to The Boat Inn at Stockton. I had set up the time lapse camera yesterday, but its only a small section.

Saturday morning, we set off to head down Stockton Locks. A few boats had passed whilst we were having breakfast, but it was still fairly quiet as we head towards the locks. These locks are wide locks and its more fun sharing, so maybe there will be a boat waiting when we arrive? There was, in fact there were two, which is unfortunate as it means they pair up and head into the lock. Still, as this is a fairly popular section another boater arrived just as we’d readied the lock, so we could share, hurrah!

This canal originally had narrow 7ft locks, but new wide locks were built later to allow both boat and butty to travel through paired up, and so speed up passage through. Oo, just on cue, up pops a boat n’ butty through a lock. Well that was well timed. The old narrow locks are no longer used, but remain visible alongside the wide locks - they mainly just had a wall built at one end and convert it into an overflow. Quite a few of the old narrow locks have concrete slabs placed over the lock chamber itself, which I guess stops accidentally falling in. The exception, to which, will be shown on the next days cruise - we had some gongoozlers on the Hatton flight, a couple (in their 50’s?) with two grandchildren explaining how a lock works. The woman steps backwards from the head of the wide lock and straight into the canal above the lock chamber of the old narrow lock. All was well, save for the obvious embarrassment of the woman in question, and the children had stifled grins obviously relishing the tales they could now embellish upon when they returned home, and again the next school day.

After Stockton flight comes Bascote Locks which includes a staircase pair built 1933-7.

“A lock staircase, or riser, is defined as two, or more, adjacent locks where the upper gates of one lock serve as the lower gates of the next. This means that there are no pounds between locks and on leaving one lock the next lock in the staircase is entered immediately.” (from staircase locks)

We had been following a pair of boats through the locks all morning, and mostly having to set them again unless we found an oncoming boat. After Welsh Road Lock we stopped for lunch on board.

After a leisurely lunch, we spy a boat (nb tricky) coming down the lock behind, and as they were unaccompanied we got ready to set off and then follow them, which they were happy with. After passing through Radford Bottom Lock we spy the Prince Regent Trip boat moored awaiting its next cargo or tourists and sightseers. The weather is now gloomy and overcast and no doubt rain will be on the way at some point. Although we get a short shower, we manage to get to Leamington Spa, and moor in the spaces outside “The Moorings” pub. Looks a nice place for an evening meal.

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Well, that didn’t take long, and I’ve got a new short URL … http://nboat.tk though I guess it needs visiting several times to keep it (or pay for it!). I could have had a character shorter, but “nboat” seems recognisable as “narrowboat”.

Mind you, http://gbut.tk is still free if a certain other blogger is interested

IF anyone wants a free domain, go to http://freedomains.nboat.tk, you can have them add free too (they are optional), you just need 25 visitors over 90 days to keep it active.

Over at GrannyButtons powerblog, Andrew has beenlooking at short URL redirections and got

www.grannybuttons.com = http://short.to/89

Hmm, well there seem to be a few short redirection domains out there. http://is.gd so 5 as opposed to 8 characters in the full domain. So giving it a go I get …

http://www.narrowboat.org.uk/ = http://is.gd/1GFz

though a longer final part means I only just pip granny’s at 10 characters to the 11 of his. Though is.gd isn’t the shortest domain, there is also http://w.cx which is only 4 characters. Giving this a try I get …

http://w.cx/c7ecd0

which unfortunately is 11 characters.

 So I wonder if I can get shorter ones??