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Some new photos from my wander at high tide today
Actually I just missed high tide as you can see from the wet line on the bottom gates of the lock, left photo. The right photo is of the tide level when we came up through the locks on 4th July.
 
Looking down river there was not a sandbar to be seen and tomorrow we can up our speed to the equivalent of 10 knots. My resident mathematician tells me this is 11.5 mph, but we will need the throttle very hard down to achieve this as we will be going against the tide!
 Down river view and in comparison -
 Convoy leaving on July 4th
Wandering towards the weir, I could see that the water had been over the path below it. Chatting to a fisherman, he assured me that the river can rise unbelievably.
 The force of water today
He recounted a recent time when he came to fish and there was no lock or weir to be seen as the river stretched from the Banqueting Hall to the far bank. He also claimed that salmon and trout were in abundance here and often the salmon could be seen jumping. However today he was "just playing around"!
A Daily Mail photo shows the river in flood in November 2009 - clickety click. Peter Smith Aerial Photographs also has an aerial view - clickety click
Compare them with this; here you can see the lock and lock ladders!
Yesterday, I mentioned the island that was created between the weir and the lock. It is now a green space that visiting boaters use for BBQs and gongoozlers use to walk their dogs! This is also completely covered when the River Ouse floods.
 Island with moorings either side
I had a closer look at the old unused lock and was fascinated to see that the bottom gate clouts (paddles) were graduated and numbered. At the bottom it says closed, then the graduations are numbered from 1 to 10, beginning again at 1 to10 to the top when they are fully open. Can anyone explain this?
 Clout gear
This is the view of the locks from downstream. We have lots more photos of the locks, cut and river. The historians among you may enjoy the old gear, buildings etc! - clickety click
There were a few boat movements today. One narrowboat came up the lock and a couple of cruisers came down for water and rubbish, but it was narrowboat kingdom this weekend!
 Narrowboat Epiphany and cruiser
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