The Leaving of Liverpool

Up at 7:30 and made ready to depart. We had a late night last night having been to the i-Max to see 'Pirates of the Caribean'.

It was a fairly bright start to the day, dry,  with a cool on shore breeze.  'Pride of Sefton' disappeared down the south docks for a short cruise then was back and through to Albert Dock about ten past nine. There were two other boats ready to depart and they seemed eager and left about twenty past nine.  We held on for word from BW and set off from the mooring at 9:35 - just about a minute before we received a phone call to say we could proceed!  We zig zagged out of Salthouse through Albert Dock into Canning half tide dock.

Then proceeded round past the two dry docks and left hand down into Mann Island lock (6) where the BW guys were just despatching the preceeding two boats.  We were worked through what amounts to little more than a rather large stop lock and then proceeded hrough the two tunnels (Museum and Cunard) passed the Liver Building and had to wait at Princes Dock Lock for the other two boats to be cleared.

Once through the lock we had a much pleasanter cruise through the docks in the sunshine compared to Sunday in the wind and rain. It was also much easier to see the path we were supposed to take as the route through the marker buoys in Princes and Princes half tide docks was more obvious in this direction.  On we passed through West Waterloo Dock and through the Central Docks Channel into Trafalgar, Salisbury, Collingwood and Stanley Docks.  We tied up and waited under Great Howard Street bridge for the two boats ahead to clear the bottom lock and Simon went ahead to assist the BW gang with the locks.

We could see 'Pride of Sefton' (this was the old boat - we had seen 'Pride of Sefton 2' at Haskayne on the way out) two locks ahead. Once at the top of the flight we found that the two boats ahead had already left for Litherland but that Pride of Sefton was moored up, we turn left onto the L&L mainline and followed.  We caught up after 4 miles at the BW services at Litherland but let them depart before we moored up briefly to make use of services and to remove some rubbish from the prop.  I had cleared a plastic bag full from the prop while moored in Liverpool but had not actually stopped to do so during the journey.

The next five miles passed uneventfully enough apart from a minor hiccup at Netherton Swing bridge.  We had caught up with the other two boats just before as they waited for the BW gang to open it.   Then as we proceeded line astern, and just before we actually got to the road,  the first boat grounded on something mid channel and swung across the canal,  there was then a somewhat protracted passing through the bridge hole with traffic building up in both directions.  Just as well the BW guys were on hand to deal with the chaos and see the problem for them selves.  We also caught up on whatever it was in the water but managed to keep going.


We were soon at Handcock's Swing Bridge where we all waved our goodbyes to the BW guy's who had done such an excellent job of escorting us out of Liverpool and making the leaving all that much more pleasant an experience!  I suppose given the current moves with BW to turn it into a trust and the lack of funds available from our government it was only to be expected that we would have something to crticise about our experience traveling by canal into Liverpool.   It was not the route itself, which was a far greener and pleasanter experience than many a route into a city but the lack of evidence of any serious attempts to remove litter and rubbish from the canal.  Many bridge holes were unpleasant experiences not just visually but grating over and through debris that could so easily be removed but had not been.  From tree trunks to road work barriers, cones and signs, floating islands of weeds, industrial waste, thousands of plastic bottles and carrier bags.   This is something the Liverpool Council should be responsible for and not BW.   The local population, and most probably not just the youths, need to be much more responsible for the state of their canal corridor it is well used as a right of way and much is lined by a country park.  Will the new trust be able to do this?