Devils Elbow on the Weaver

Woke just before 8 in time to see the yacht 'Starship' moored below Dutton lock on the waterpoint opposite slip its mooring and set off, ultimate destination Cherbourg.

We followed down river a couple of hours later after a leisurely and sunny start to the day, walking dogs, chatting to lock keeper and owner of boat passing upstream with Frodsham marked on its side. He answers my query that we are not able to moor in the Frodsham cut and it now has a beam barring the entrance. He last moored there some ten years ago.

Later in the day we moored just before the entrance, took our rucksacks and walked the old towpath down past the low bridge and town lock to explore a little of Frodsham. We saw a small coastal ship and barge tied together on the wharf, the barge low in the water so is fully laden.

In Frodsham we searched out the butchers to buy some of Sue Cowards pies as recommended by the lock keeper at Saltersford.  Then had refreshments at the Queens Head, a delightful Inn with welcoming landlady keen to satisfy our varying demands of tea, coffee, wine and beer!  We then retraced our steps with minor detour for shopping and had covered nearly six miles by the time we arrived back at the boats.

We moved on to the Sutton Weaver swing bridge services and moored in front of nb Caroline to await an engineer for Ruby Tuesday.  Turned out to be fairly protracted stop as engineer made two visits to replace alternator and fridge.  Had a very pleasant chat and cup of tea with crew of Caroline whilst we were there. they too were having alternaor problems and awaiting a delivery. Then set off for evening cruise to try and replenish the batteries on Ruby Tuesday.

The weather today was rather good, we stayed dry and even saw plenty of sunshine and our late cruise was again in very pleasant evening sunshine. After turning near Weston Marsh sea lock we retraced our path past the services and Caroline against the flow of the local rowing club, past the Frodsham cut and managed to find a space long enough to squeeze Ruby Tuesday into then breasted Prairie Oyster up on the offside being careful to switch engines off quickly to avoid scaring the two ferrets in a large cage on stern deck of nb Amy.