Narrowboat vacation: first photos

Half of our vacation in England involved a narrowboat trip from Bath to Devizes and back. In order to afford the trip, we also traveled with my particular friend Lee and her brother Jim, which is also the name of my husband. In this picture, you can see my husband Jim at right at the tiller.

The boat is actually less expensive than staying at a hotel if you consider that you have a place to eat, sleep, cook, wash and travel in one package. There’s a full kitchen, two bathrooms and even a shower and four-foot long tub. We ate breakfast and lunch on board and at pubs in the evening. Of course I say all this but it was husband who paid for everything except the admission at the Jane Austen Centre.

As you can see, it is a long, narrow boat, about 7 feet wide and 65 feet long. You can just see the rear bunks through the open hatch and Lee’s brother Jim standing in the prow.

What I called our Heart of Darkness moments. Portions of the Kennet and Avon Canal are very overgrown, making for very moody and enjoyable passages but also making navigation difficult.

Here we’re sharing space with two other small boats in a lock. My Jim’s at the tiller and he’s waiting for the rest of the crew to close the lock gates behind him. Then the water from the canal ahead will be introduced through the openings in the bottom of the lock. The water level will rise and we can open the gates on the higher side and sail through. Unfortunately my husband allowed the two smaller boats to enter the lock first, meaning he had to sail in behind them, with a little bumping and grinding.