A heavy list

Christmas presents?

No.

Casualties?

Definitely not.

To Port?

Oh yes......

This morning the Pippins awoke to a "roll out of bed" style list to port.

The E.A. have been at it again.

In order to protect Cambridge from flooding ( a worthy objective with which I have no quarrel), they have opened the sluices at the lock near The Parish and lowered the river level by about a foot.

Severe weather is forecast.

As a result, this morning , all The Parish boats were ahoo, wind turbine masts at drunken angles, hulls fast aground, and mooring lines twangingly taught.

It is the latter that bothers me more than anything. It strains the lines to a very severe degree. If they were to snap ( Pippin tips the scales at a portly 26 tons laden), then we would all be in a bit of a pickle.

The Parish boats are very good at looking after each other. Jackie went round this morning slackening lines on Caboodle, Hullabaloo and Innocenti (the other boats were well served by their own crews), and we have, in the past, all mucked in to retrieve boats that have pulled pins in high wind etc.

If only the E.A. ran a text service warning of immenant low water in the way they offer Strong Stream advice, we could avoid any problems.

At the moment, the only 'warning' we get is a lot of gurgling as water rushes out from under the hull followed by a disconcertingly drunken angle to the deck.

I kid you not, it is that dramatic: literally like someone pulling the plug!

River life, for you, as opposed to life on the canals, I suppose.....

In other news, I drove over the bridge at Horningsea on the way to work today to see that poor Jester, a venerable and very rotten sea-going wooden fishing boat, had sunk at her moorings at Clayhithe.

This is where The Cam Conservancy moor the boats seized through non-payment of licence or those deemed so unsafe as to warrant a hazard to navigation.

Poor Jester was listing heavily to starboard, probably bilged on the bottom as a result of the E.A.'s mucking about with the water level.

Someone had got on board and hooked up a high capacity pump as water was streaming over her side, but I don't hold out too much hope.

Once a boat falls into the ignorant and uncaring clutches of That Funny Silly Little Man from the Conservancy, then it is most surely doomed.

They should sack him and get in someone who knows something about boats.