You may know the old adage - 'It's not what you know it's who you know" well when it comes to online moorings and other non marina moorings you have to know people or do a lot of towpath walking to find snippets of info on vacancies and owners telephone numbers.
We have a good friend who moors on the Shroppie - I'll not name them as I've not asked that they be included in my blog. We've also friends who moor on the Staffs and Worcester, both on what might be called farmers moorings - on line abbutting agricultural land. Back in the mists of time when C&RT was not and British Waterways was it must have been so much easier to agree a rather large 'end of garden' mooring by some farmers or land owners. A win for them as it brought in more income and win from BW as they got more income and the boaters got nice mooring on line but with the safety of being across from the towpath and not paying marina like fees and not having to endure shops pubs cinemas etc ( and pay handsomely to be the attraction) Ok the losers were those boaters who have a car type mentality or got to get everywhere as fast as I/we can and don't enjoy ticking over looking at the moored boats.
Anyhow said friends were contacted for info and advice and crucially contact numbers for on line off side moorings. As per my last blog no much about that isn't silly money so we put the feelers out and we landed a txt offering a 60 foot mooring at just short of half moneywise of what we would be paying come April at Great Haywood. Water and parking with views. Not absolutely ideal but much better than what we were considering.
Also the vacancy ties in very well with the heavy three months notice period at GH - so good in that we are planning a 3/4 anti clockwise four counties cruise to land at the new moorings around the end of April. No photos yet but the prospect of using Percy once again as a holiday cottage on the canal with riparian rights. The only change is that I'll have to dust down the Honda suitcase genny as there is no hook up - something I'm quite pleased about. I've never been comfortable with all those boats of dubious electrical installations sitting potentially fizzing away their anodes at best.
The proof of a good business isn't so much how they say hello it's how they say goodbye... so until our business with Great Haywood is complete and we have cruised away I'll hold my thoughts on our time there. To date it's been positive .....
Another significant bonus of the type of mooring we are taking is it's relaxed nature - there were so many constraints when marina mooring. There are jobs that need doing that can be done without fear of breaching the conditions put in place to protect the interests of the on site engineering facility - great if you are not a DIY'er but if you are then that has to be done outside of the marina.
O' and before I stop typing the absolute scourge of marinas - some more than others is wind and berthing. For me it really does spoil the trip out, sometimes even before it's started if its blowing hard as marinas seem to be positioned just so that however you go out or come in you get taught a lesson by nature. Even Percy's low sides and heavy weight still can be a sail to the playful and sometimes mean nasty wind !
More to come as and when it's right to type
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