Paxton Pits Sat 13 July 2013

Last night our guests arrived in good time and we all went out to eat in St Ives followed by a peaceful night behind the Dolphin.

This morning we woke to a lovely morning and the day was destine to get much hotter, hitting 32°C.

We were away a little after 9 am as I wanted to clear Hemingford before the regatta started, but in the we arrived just as the first race finished so were able to pass straight through.  At Godmanchester we turned into the basin above the lock just to show our guests the waterfront. The tree at the head of the lock is now completely chopped down and is just awaiting removal. Lets hope they now rebuild the visitor mooring where the wall has collapsed into the water.

We stopped for a picnic lunch on the GOBA moorings at Brampton Mill. It was here that I witnessed the most rude boating manners I have ever seen. Three cruisers coming down stream from the lock and just back from us 2 mooring spaces. The first boat did a U turn in the river to come back into the moorings as he was approaching the gap the back boat of the three turned hard left through 90° and T boned into the bank right where the first boat was coming in to moor, causing him to go hard astern to avoid a collision and thus stealing his mooring spot. I was expecting words to be said, but the boat that made the correct approach didn’t say a word but just moored behind him.

We continued up river to St Neots. where there were loads of moorings, unfortunately we needed to head back downstream for a bit to make Sunday a shorter day. We were hoping that by now some of the other moorings would be free and tried to get in behind NB Corib but the gap was about 4 feet to short so Steward and Angie kindly insisted we moored alongside. We insisted they help to drink our bottle of bubbly.
As we were eating our dinner the Oliver Cromwell went steaming by on the East Coast line, Angie called out but we were to slow to see it.