Twist, and stick

We'd left Chertsey tied up on the outside of the marina, in anticipation of leaving this Friday, but as we're now not going to, it was necessary to go back and move her again. I'd planned to go over some time to give her a bit of a clean and tidy up, so yesterday I drove down with Margi and we made a bit of an afternoon of it. About half an hour after we'd arrived, a passing boat tooted to say that we were untied at the front. The rope had broken - it had been rubbing on the fender chain and the movement caused by the previous passing boat had been enough to snap what was left - but what a serendipitous coincidence that it happened while I was actually there. The boat that spotted it very neatly pushed Chertsel back into the bank, and even threw me the other fore end line, which was very helpful.

After that bit of excitement, we got a fair bit of cleaning done, with Margi doing stirling work sweeping up the shedded fibres of blue string while I scrubbed and swabbed. Then we had lunch in the Barlow, before setting off on a very short trip to the winding hole after bridge 71, where I performed a near perfect turn, before returning to tie up for another few weeks on the pontoon.