[Aside: Not quite sure why that post about the Dunkirk Little Ship has suddenly appeared… it was posted weeks ago, but has only just shown up. Ho Hum.]

The bank near The Anchor is rather soft and dry, and you need to ensure that any mooring pins are really secure and won’t pull out if another boat passes by. Kelly Ann clearly hadn’t!

Completely blocking the canal, and with no-one at the pub claiming ownership, we managed to board it, and with another passer-by (a boat yard chap from Byfleet way) poled it back alongside, then as a hint, really secured their pins. The Byfleet chap mentioned that their barge pole was rotten in the middle, and that he had several shiny new ones at his yard, should we see the culprits return.

The Kelly Ann  guys returned eventually, but rather than head downstream towards the Byfleet chap’s boatyard, they headed upstream. While trying to manoeuvre backwards into the marina entrance to turn round, their bargepole snapped…

Later, a wide-beam boat suffered the same pin-pulling indignity at the same spot. A posh chap in a tupperware cruiser arrived and fulminated “they’re blocking the navigation, you know” as though it was a deliberate, thoughtless act leaving a boat in his way, and proceeded to mutter mutter mutter while we pinned that one back too. Strange.

Setting off late on Sunday afternoon, just to move away from the pub, the wide-beam had almost come adrift again, but we squeezed past while another boater went to sort it out. We moored up not far away, then on Monday pottered gently down to the delights of Weybridge, through New Haw and Coxes Lock.