Bit of 'Off River Boating' at Nassington!

Elton to Nassington, River Nene, 3 miles 1 lock

It was a bit windy when we set off this morning, but hey, we had only planned on going down the river a short way.  Not only for a change of scenery and some different walking routes to explore, but we need that nice Mr Tesco to come along in his van and fill up the larder a bit.

I knew that would be difficult to arrange, the Tesco delivery I mean, one, there are not too many places to moor, and two, none of the places to possibly moor are near roads!

I spied a bywater on the map, going off to the left into the village of Nassington.  There used to be a pub there you see, closed now, but when it was open it had some moorings… No reason to think that those moorings wouldn’t still be there in some form or other.  Anyway it would be right on the main street in Nassington.  Mr Tesco would surely be able to deliver there!

Gently turned NP into the left turn into the bywater …. going very slowly and looking behind I could see a lot of mud… very shallow indeed.  I wondered if our draught would be shallow enough at 1’ 9”… a couple of bends to negotiate under a weeping willow determined to try to weep to the water, by this time I had to just up the throttle as NP was struggling.  Couldn’t make the second bend because it was difficult to steer in the shallow water, and gently came to a stop with the bows close to the bank on the left.

Reversed back a bit, and the wind, for once in my favour, took the bows round and straight again.  I decided to keep trying, after all, this bywater went straight round and back out onto the Nene with no weirs or anything, it was just a matter of keeping going!

Saw the moorings… they are brand new!  Lovely hard side… but a building site was there, not a pub that had shut!  Vic was at the bow end eyeballing ahead “There is a bridge, no way Sue will we get under that!”  Nah surely not… there were no bridges showing on the map for this bywater, I checked!  But sure enough it came into view for me… No way were we going any further!

Choices…. reverse back or try moor at this building site.  While I was deciding what to do, NP made her own decision in the wind and the bows blew to the right…. OK lets try turn then, I thought, wondering if in fact there was 55ft across this bit… There was… well 56ft I guess… but with the helpful wind and very gentle maneuvering NP was facing ‘back out’.  We successfully moored, so this is my backyard today piccy with the bridge in the background!

We did surprise the building site manager “How did you get up here!”.. “We are rebuilding the Hotel pub here”… “Yes OK you can stay for your delivery tomorrow”…  All I needed to do then was make the order on the internet and arrange for the delivery in the morning.

The only thing I am a bit worried about is once we have our larder full from Tesco tomorrow, I hope that the boat isn’t an inch or two heavier in the water to get back out of here.  Maybe I shouldn’t have ordered that extra sack of spuds!!