Now urgently needing to do some washing, and hence needing a shore line, on Saturday afternoon we’d approached Cathedral Marina on the Ely waterfront with a view to temporary moorings plus a hook-up for a couple of nights, starting on the Sunday. Most marinas, and even home counties Thames locks charge about £10 a night for the privilege, even if Pyrford Marina, the nearest marina to the Captain’s home rips you off for nearly twice that. The Cathedral Marina boss said “Sure, no problem”, but fortunately we asked the price before agreeing to anything. When he said “£30 a night” we said “HOW MUCH???”, to which he replied “Well, this is  Ely”. With nowhere else around nearer than several days cruising, we decided we could do all we needed to do in 24 hours, and with a wet weekend forecast reckoned we’d probably find somewhere back out on the waterfront on the Bank Holiday Monday.

As expected for August Bank Holiday, Sunday dawned wet and miserable, and we pootled back down the river for a couple of hundred yards and were shown into a slot in the marina. A 40ft pontoon for a 58ft boat is hardly ideal, and listening to our grumbling about the cost, the boss’ sidekick took our credit card, put his finger to his lips, said “Shhhh…” and seemingly charged the card “only” £20. Hope he doesn’t get into trouble. Strangely, the marina’s annual mooring charges aren’t nearly so outrageous, given its position pretty much in the middle of a lovely city.

It poured with rain all Sunday. but while the washing machine was whirring away we managed a trip to the cook’s favourite emporium for supplies, and – bringing back memories of the first mate’s choral singing childhood – went to sung Evensong in the cathedral. The huge building is just astonishing, the acoustics just wonderful. The choir weren’t quite up to the professional bunch we saw at Peterborough, but more than up to the task. And suitably uplifted, we went back out into the pouring rain, and a boat load of wet washing.

Bank Holiday Monday dawned just as dull and wet, and we were kind of glad we weren’t camping at  Towersey or Shrewsbury Folk Festivals for the weekend. Finishing off the chores and stuff, just before lunch we left the marina, and unsurprisingly did indeed find a perfect mooring just outside the marina entrance. Where had all the fair-weather boaters gone – the whole Ely waterfront was pretty well deserted.

The afternoon was spent wandering around what appeared from the outside to be an smallish antique shop in an old building just 100 yards from the boat. However, it proved to be the Antique Road Show equivalent of Dr Who’s Tardis, with over 70 dealers stalls spread over three floors. Total sensory overload, dozens of visitors, it was all too much to take in.

Even in the evening, when the weather had improved a bit, there was no-one around, and the waterfront restaurants were pretty empty, so we had no trouble finding somewhere to eat. Think everyone had given up on the Bank Holiday somewhat earlier.

8 o’clock the lockkeeper said, for our transit up a tidal bit of the River Great Ouse and through Denver Sluice onto the non-tidal section. So although we appeared to be number three in the queue, we were up at OMG o’clock and ready for duty at 07:45. No sign of the lockkeeper, though.

At 8 o’clock an old hand at this tidal transit lark peered over the wall, and said that the tidal river was still very high, too high to get under the sluice guillotine and bridges, and reckoned it would be nearer 08:45 before anyone could venture through.

Sure enough, about 20 minutes later Paul the lockkeeper appeared, and started marshalling everyone together: there were four of us going up, and some coming down from Denver. As a newbie, Paul suggested that yours truly help him lock number one through as a training exercise, with running commentary and plenty of hints on handling the boat on the river while the tide was flowing out pretty fast. Helpful and most welcome.

The lock has to cope with the river being higher and lower than the Middle Levels, so it has two sets of gates at the end of the chamber, one set pointing up and one set pointing downstream. Locking up, the chamber is barely 58ft long: a tight squeeze for us. At certain times, when the Great Ouse and Well Creek are the same level, they can open everything and just let everyone sail straight through (for a short time)!

In the end, it all happened very quickly. Exiting Salter’s Lode lock we managed – without too much drama – the nearly 180° turn into the river doing its best to take us sideways to King’s Lynn, poured on the power, and barely 5 minutes / a few hundred yards later we branched off the fast flowing tide into the cavernous safe haven of the Denver Sluice lock, which was already open waiting for us. No time for cameras!

With all the excitement over, the journey down to Ely was utterly undramatic. Nice weather, big wide river, high banks, long straight stretches and little to see, although we were encouraged to spot a number of suitably pleasant mooring spaces for possible use on the way back. The village next to the 10 mile bank appeared to be called 10 Mile Bank. Can’t think why.

Ely is seemingly a waterways honey-pot, so turning up on a sunny bank holiday Saturday lunchtime was probably ill advised, but our grasp of days of the week and the calendar has become rather vague…

Ely waterside gardens and town quay were mobbed, with boats and people, but our luck held, and we eventually located somewhere just under the railway bridge in the picture, with rather more suitable facilities for the Captain. Cheesy chips and decent Guinness at the quayside pub for a slightly late lunch – all was well with the world.

To get to Ely the normal procedure is to join the River Great Ouse at Salter’s Lode, where the river is tidal (and how!), then travel upstream for about a third of a mile to Denver Sluice, part of a major flood defence, whereupon the river becomes non-tidal again. But one can only get through Salter’s Lode Lock/Sluice for short period after high tide. As two high tides roughly twelve hours apart rarely fall into the same working day for the lockkeeper, one is rather restricted in passing through. “0800 to 0830” said the lockkeeper, so it was clear that if we wanted to get through in Saturday morning we’d have to get to Salter’s Lode on Friday night.

There are quite a few ways through the mysterious and multifarious Middle Levels, some more navigable than others but we’d bravely decided to follow the recommended route. This takes us through Upwell & Outwell, seemingly once a single riverside village that underwent binary fission sometime in the long distant past, and then grew back together more recently: you can’t really see the join.

Setting out from March, on wide and straight water, with mainly high banks again, the most obvious crops were wind turbines and big sky, and no other visible boaters.

Approaching Marmont Priory Lock, which we had expected to be manned (or more specifically womanned), we found a day-hire narrowboat out of March that was just starting to tackle the lock with staggering quantities of enthusiasm, energy, and ignorance. We managed, just in time, to stop them opening all the paddles (sorry, penstocks) and draining all the water out of Well Creek: good job we arrived when we did. Before we’d got them sorted out, another utterly unprepared day boat from the same outfit turned up, and had to breast up to Song & Dance because the lock landing only has room for 1 short boat. Biggles had taken umbrage at these strangers traipsing over the back of his boat, had gone ashore, and was heading at some rate of knots down the road to Norfolk. The second day boat crew at least admitted they hadn’t a clue. So we by the time we’d sorted out all that, (6 penstocks all needing 60+ winds to operate) and retrieved the Captain, lunch in Upwell & Outwell looked good… and fortunately the good burghers of Outwell & Upwell had put in some excellent moorings (or staithes, as they call them hereabouts). Splendid café right next to the church, where an interesting array of people in their finery were assembling for a wedding. The bride was late, by the looks of it, so we missed that bit.

All of which meant it was rather late in the afternoon when we finally made Salter’s Lode; fortunately there was room for us on the moorings, and we seemed to be number three in the queue going through the lock. Another long day.