NB Rock 'n' Roll

Thursday 26th February 2009

Saw a glimpse of spring lambs through the hedgerow this morning as we cruised towards Sutton Cheney - definitely a good sign of spring!

Stopped for water at Sutton Cheney and was hoping to moor here for the night but unfortunately the 48 hour mooring slots were all taken - only one of the four boats had a winter mooring sign and the pontoon was littered with generators, motorbike, clothes airers, wood and sacks of coal. I contacted BW to check if these were all winter moorers and they confirmed that they were. I pointed out the unfairness of this as BW had virtually closed a whole facility leaving no space for casual cruisers and surely these boats should be displaying mooring licences?

The BW guy I was speaking said that their enforcement officer had been in the Sutton Cheney area a few weeks ago to move on a supposedly 'continuous cruiser' who had overstayed. He said that BW, over the next few months, is having a crack-down on continual cruisers who do not keep to the rules as this is not fair to those who do pay mooring fees. You can imagine my annoyance and pointed out that the majority of continual cruisers did their level best to stay within the guidelines and that it did seem that BW were punishing the majority for the fault of the few. Enough of my high horse - we eventually tied up at the Bosworth Battlefield moorings - and very nice it was!!