30th March '11

What a change in the weather... it's been wet and windy today and we had to do the scariest bit of the journey so far. We travelled down to Denver Sluice as planned and got there in plenty of time for the 3.00pm deadline and found that the tide was well out and still going....a bit disconcerting. I got online and checked the tide times at Hunstanton which is at the mouth of the river we were on, and found that the lock-keeper was out with his timing. We thought that we would be stuck there until the morning.

We went out for a walk at about 4.30pm and the river had just started to turn the tide - lots of sandbanks were in evidence and the entrance for the lock looked minute plus there was a huge sandbank to one side of it. It was obvious that we would have to go downstream a bit and then turn. I was SO nervous at the very thought of it but it had to be done to get back to the canals!

SO we got back to the boat and John contacted the lock-keeper and he said that he'd try to get us through tonight - he came down to the boat about 10 minutes later and said that he'd get us through in 5 minutes!!!!!

Mad rush to get ready - it was raining again and the wind had got up again so conditions were excellent for a difficult bit of steering....

We got through Denver Sluice easily and came out avoiding the sandbanks - my wonderful husband deserves a medal for his steering and calm head. He turned the boat around with consumate ease and took it into the lock with only the smallest bump. We got into the lock at an angle - the longest boat able to get through and we did it!!! came out the other side and are now moored on the other side - on the levels and another step nearer the canals! We have been warned that the levels are full of very low bridges, some tricky corners, some difficult locks and not that many moorings! Sounds lovely....

Taken from inside our boat - this is the huge sluice that controls the flow of water out of the river and stops the tide from coming up past this point - HUGE construction.

The lock at Denver Sluice - lucky it's operated by a lock-keeper and John was able to steer us into it!

This is the view from the top of the lock - you can see the narrow channel that the boat has to follow - this is only an hour before we navigated it but the tide comes in at such a pace that the large sandbank was almost covered by the time we went through!

This is looking back at the sluice - the lock is just in on the left of the picture.

This is the opening to Salters Lode - it's not the clearest picture in the world but the wall going from centre to right is the opening and the lump in front of that is the sandbank that has to be avoided - the river is running from left to right and when we did it the tide was coming right to left and the wind was in the opposite direction - we turned just past the extreme right of the picture to approach it at the right angle - I said it was scary!

A closer view of the lock entrance - John is even more my hero now than he was before. We are now going to break out the malt and relax with a couple of VERY large glasses!!