My video diaries are done using a Ricoh Caplio R6 on a suction tripod mount set to take photos at 5 second intervals. As you can appreciate that could mean a lot of photos. So how many? Well having now got all the photos from my trip down the GUC earlier this month onto my computer, I thought I’d do this screenshot:

Though this total contains some processed files, namely 42 files occupying 5GB of space, as I compile the images into video (using a lossless compression). Still that’s some 55,693 individual photo’s from this single 11 day holiday. As you can imagine that will mean I’ll start accumulating a vast array over the next few years. My main aim was simply to use the photos to create the videos. I’m deleting any interim production files (like the video segments) when finished and will probably archive the photos to disc just in case I wanted them again.

Prior to these video log procedure I used to just take photo’s and last June (2006) thought wouldn’t it be great to help out canalplan and ensure I took photos of features they don’t have them for. Not really having any “list” it was simply a matter of looking at the photos to see if I did have any. Now, however, I have a photo of every few feet of the canal sections I’ve traversed. So its quite straight forward to go through and add some. I’ve uploaded a 100 taken between Braunston and Cosgrove, but will probably go through every so often and upload some more.

I read somewhere a list of “little known facts” that included a duck’s quack has no echo, and no one knows why.

Surely that can’t be true? Well I took five minutes out to have a search and found an article by the University of Salford Acoustics Dept .

“A duck’s quack doesn’t echo” is a much quoted scientific myth. In spring 2003 it was quoted on Home Truths on BBC Radio 4 and Shooting Stars on BBC 2. You can listen to our sound files on Home Truths by going to the BBC4 web site and “listening again”. Recently, Salford Acoustics was the source of the story being presented in the national and international media when we proved that a duck’s quack does echo as part of the British Association Festival of Science.

Its a nice article, explaining what an echo is and the experiments they did to show the echo, and summarised this all as:

So a duck’s quack certainly echoes around our reverberation chamber, so a duck’s quack does echo. Which leads to the most interesting question, why did the myth arise? The are a few possible explanations that I can think of:

• The quack does echo, but it is usually too quiet to hear. When you want to hear an echo, you usually make a very loud noise to make sure the reflection can be heard. But a duck quacks too quietly, so the reflection is too quiet to hear.
• Ducks don’t quack near reflecting surfaces. You need a large reflecting surface, a mountain or building for the sound to reflect off. Maybe ducks don’t hang around reflecting surfaces.
• It is hard to hear the echo of a sound which fades in and fades out.

I think its because they never keep quiet long enough for you to hear any echo.

Sunday 9th September 2007: Having just come through the tunnel, it was almost 2pm we decided it was a good spot to stop for lunch. Most evenings we go out to a pub for a meal & drink, but Sunday’s are notoriously difficult for this - many pubs don’t serve meals on Sunday evenings or require booking. I suppose if I were organised and kept to a schedule I could do that, but I don’t. It’s hard enough to “be” at a certain point when you are out for Christmas, rather than doing it for every day (its not that I couldn’t but more its not the kind of holiday I want. I prefer to just go and then decide mid afternoon where’s good to stop in the next couple of hours). So on Sunday’s we tend to go to the pub at lunchtime, and eat on board in the evening.

We went to the Boat Inn, after a quick peek into the Navigation saw a long line of people queuing up to order food. We were told our food would take 40 minutes or so as they were busy. Time to have a leisurely lunch and try not to consume too much alcohol before the meal arrived. It took slightly longer than this but it was a nice break. Afterwards we nipped into the canal craft shop on the same side and the museum shop opposite before deciding to set back off in the boat. Although it was now 5pm, thought we may just go a bit further.

We were joined in the locks by an Australian couple doing the London Ring in 3 weeks. It was a nice and sunny late afternoons cruise and we were soon down through the locks and winding our way  with the river Trove. A quiet section of canal, only one boat passed us and most of the moored boats were unoccupied.  By Yardley Wharf the sun was low in the sky, so time to think about stopping. So we carried on to Thrupp Wharf Br. 64 and moored shortly afterwards.  Time now 7.45pm.

It was quite a blistery Sunday morning and we soon reached Gayton Junction and carried straight on towards Blisworth and its tunnel. Since we had been passing oncoming boats several times already, its not surprising we did the same inside the tunnel. This was the first time through Blisworth tunnel for me, but not the first time I’ve passed boats inside a tunnel. Blisworth is now the longest canal tunnel I’ve been through so far - a couple of hundred yards longer than Harecastle that I’ve traversed several times when the boat was based at Etruria. Its a fairly wet tunnel with waterfalls coming down the ventilation shafts. Once out we decided to moor for lunch at a nearby pub.

Sunday 9th September 2007: A bright and sunny morning so nice for plodding along on a narrowboat. Soon after starting off we met an oncoming boat at a bridge hole, something that many skippers seem to dread. I had slowed down using blasts of reverse expecting the boat to continue through, but instead he rather kindly reversed back and to one side (one benefit of having a smaller boat I guess) to let me pass. I thanked him and went on my way. This part of the canal winds it way round the hills, and although it seemed fairly quiet I met several oncoming boats over a couple of miles.

My engine, a BMC, has been recently overhauled and runs brilliantly so I only need nudge it out of tick over and I’m doing 3mph - according to my Tom Tom sat nav. I soon caught up to a boat in front who’s just set off, and although I was happy to follow they pulled over and beckoned me past - very nice of them. I guess at this speed its easy to see the camera at the front, or maybe they don’t like anyone following them? I do know that quite a few people don’t, anxious of possibly slowing the boat behind down. They did mention this as I passed, but I said I wasn’t in a hurry - I was just ‘going out and back again’ rather than a ring or other time sensitive cruise. Its nice to be able to chat whilst overtaking. There are some people, usually newish hirers (though I really shouldn’t castigate) whose aim is to see how far they can go and so will always be in a rush, most people thankfully just like to plod. If I catch up to a boat I try not to get too close, after all it may unnerve them, but how far back I stay depends on their speed. If they are doing normal cruising speed I’m happy to stay a distance away, but if I am almost failing to keep behind them at tick over I may go slightly closer in the hope they’ll decide to stop and let me pass (unilaterally deciding to overtake is too slow a procedure). Mind you the distance I stay behind a cruising boat is also dependent on the canal layout ahead. If we are approaching a wide lock I’ll stay a hundred feet or so in the hope of lock sharing, but if its a narrow lock I’ll pull well back slowing down further since I’d only have to wait!

The journey is once again available as a time lapse video.For this one I added something new, namely a map of the overall route taken on the day, which may help casual visitors.

Next up Blisworth Tunnel …. (I’ll continue this tomorrow)

Friday 7th September: A late start in travelling down meant we didn’t get to the boatyard until 4pm. After loading up and then nipping out to the supermarket in nearby Southam, it was after 5 when we set off. With almost two weeks out I’d decided to go down the Grand Union Canal, one route I hadn’t done whilst based at Calcutt, since its the boat is moving bases this winter. It wasn’t for a lack of trying as twice before I had planned to go down, but stoppages prevented me! Once when Braunston Locks were under repair and later I couldn’t get beyond Norton Junction due to delay in winter stoppage work and ended up going to Leicester.

We stopped at Flecknoe for the first night, mainly so we didn’t take the easy option of staying in the boatyard - I don’t think of Silhouette as a house boat! The next morning I set up the camera to start the video-log before setting off into Braunston and heading straight for the locks and into a queue. I was 6th and so time for a coffee break. The boat in front, as I’ve mentioned in another post, was the OS boat Debdale. We lock shared up to the summit before we both went through Braunston Tunnel. This gave us a bit of time to chat about video-blogging and about Ownerships (as they were new owners). We stopped for lunch after the Tunnel and then proceeded onto Buckby Locks, sharing with another boat. After this we travelled to Weedon where we decided to stop and have a walk into the village for the evening.

We went to The Plume of Feathers, a nice pub run by a couple who don’t drink or so a local told us.