Strong Stream Advice has been issued for the River Cam

...although it's not got to the stage of reversing locks yet (an operation on the Nene and Ouse, where the EA chain open both sets of lock gates in an emergency) the river has risen pretty swiftly. We woke up this morning to peace and quiet- no passing rowing boats. This ought to have been suspicious, until I went to put my foot onto dry land and get off the boat, only to find that the land wasn't as dry as it should have been! We put the floodpoles in and loosened the mooring ropes, and went to work. Amy managed to leave early to check on the boat, so we weren't too worried.

There had been a strong flow yesterday, and we nearly moored up next to Jesus lock. The visitor moorings were full, however, and we moved onto a different mooring, which was good because this was the scene that greeted me when I went back this afternoon:


Big John's boat, Pippin.





Turbulent water- glad we're not moored there...

The sluices were fully open and the river was significantly higher than normal. We've escaped lightly, however, at the mooring where we are because the bank is slightly higher than elsewhere, with a nice solid edge, along with some mooring loops in solid foundations. Other people hadn't been so lucky- their mooring pins became submerged, and as the ground got wetter and wetter, they started to come loose. One narrowboater ended up waking up when travelling sideways downstream and was assisted by some passing rowers, livening up their morning after the rowing was cancelled.

On the way back tonight, I walked along the river and took a few photographs; it looks like I might not be rowing from City of Cambridge boathouse tomorrow! The hard is completely submerged in some places, and has come in under the doors.









So we're sitting tight tonight, with the fire on, and a nice sturdy plank to walk across... ;)



(nb Kestrel's ex-plank)