[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.

Continuing the passage to Guildford in hot sun but with quite a strong breeze, there’s a sharp hairpin bend just before Guildford where one struggles to get round tidily at the best of times in a long narrow boat.

There’s also a break in the tree shelter belt just there,  and the wind that day was broadside on to the boat at the critical point: despite all best efforts Song & Dance decided to go her own way, and ended up aground on the bank halfway round the bend under a weeping willow, gently touching the trunk. There was no one watching and no  damage apart from to her pride, so no harm done. The numerous fresh scars and assorted paintwork marks on the tree trunk suggested that we had made a rather better fist of it than some who had passed that way earlier…

The lovely weather had also brought the gongoozlers out in force at the lock in Guildford.

The transit through Guildford town centre is interesting, and quite quick: it’s a compact city.

There’s some interesting ironmongery at the town wharf, and it’s handy for The Electric Theatre  cafe.

It’s a bit close to where the yoof gather of an evening though, so I’m not sure we’d want to moor there overnight. Not sure  how the statement “Electricity Works” is supposed to be taken, although it certainly was at 19:13 that evening, as the chief cook listened to the Archers until the end without any electrical interruptions. It’s handy for the picture house, too.

But no worries, we’d taken the precaution of reserving a spot at Dapdune Wharf a few hundred metres down the water.