Narrowboat

We started the day late, since it was raining when we awoke, but set off once the rain cleared. Studying the Nicholson over breakfast showed we had 11 miles and 24 locks left on this canal, but whether we did it all on one day depended on the weather (or how hardy we felt if rain sets in).

The rain had stopped giving the air a nice fresh feel, but rain clouds still loomed in the sky. This stretch of canal was quiet, though we passed a couple of boaters also enjoying the Spring climate. The locks start off at a steady pace and you can enjoy the scenery and examine the split lock bridges as you pass by. Just before we reached Wootton Wawen we passed NB Oasis Too who’s infamy arises from appearing on BBC News during last years floods, though no one seemed on board at present. We approached the moorings amid quite a commotion - a field was full of cars and hundreds of people were milling around. There was a “walk” event that had attracted equal numbers of ramblers and onlookers. We moored up, visited the farm shop and then had lunch on board. Afterwards we pulled over to the boat yard to get a gas bottle, as the boat only half a bottle (plus an empty) when we arrived this time. We also topped up the diesel since there’d be some river cruising ahead.

The afternoon was sunny, and the view from over Edstone Aqueduct was great - though you had to keep one eye on where the boat was going less you make a large clang against the side. Next up was Wilmcote Locks containing almost half the locks we’d do today. These are well maintained and we did them at a relaxed pace in the warm afternoon. Travelling on you then leave the seclusion of the countryside as you enter Stratford upon Avon with its mixture of industrial and residential waterside buildings. The bridges here have fairly low headrooms but its fine, so long as you remember to duck. As we round the bend after the final lock we see the brick road bridge that is the entrance to Bancroft Basin, which is now instantly recognisable from all the media coverage of floods in 2007. We entered the basin and then found a mooring spot. Time to get ready and go out.

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It seems Andrew Denny and myself have been following each other’s posts over domain names. Now I suppose http://nboat.tk isn’t too memorable and if someone’s trying to remember it after being told in a pub/lock/etc may just remember it as nboat-dot-something-or-other. However it is probably better than some random short URL redirection service (they are great for creating links to post in forums, emails etc - I use them for this, but for verbal reference they no longer become short!). So, what then would be best? As Andrew stated narrowboat.com has gone, as too with most common extensions (like .org .net and .uk), and although there are some country extensions where its still available you may suffer from the problem that people may forget which extension (unless its a known common one for the country you’re in), though narrowboat.me is available with the new “must have” .me domain - though maybe afloatwith.me sounds better??

You probably are best with going for your boat name, after all grannybuttons is quite memorable if you tell someone lockside. For me, Silhouette.com has gone, though I’m glad as I would probably not have gone on to stumble onto narrowboat.org.uk

So a few days ago I mentioned I’d got another domain name. Well, after musing around what alternatives there were, and finding it puzzling that some people pause before pronouncing the dot-uk part, I thought what’s shorter than narrowboat.org.uk? Well narrowboat.org would be, but that’s gone just like narrowboat.com so how about http://narrowboat - ah some clever person is going to tell me that’s not valid and that some web browsers will automatically put on the .com part in such instances as all domains have to be something-dot-something. Okay, in that case why don’t I just place a ‘dot’ in the name somewhere? Well narrow.boat would be cool, but that’s not valid, there is no .boat Top Level Domain (why not, there is after all .name and .mobi amongst others), but there is .AT, which is the extension for Austria. Then I though, come on http://narrowbo.at is bound to have been snapped up by some URL redirection site drawing you in to some totally unexpected and non-nautical website, but its wasn’t - so now http://narrowbo.at points here

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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