Blown Away!

As the weather seemed a little brighter we decided to go for it, the fact that the wind was gusting fiercely we chose to ignore ( mistake ). After winding we went back down the Mac for a few hundred yards to re fuel etc having to wind again in the entrance of a marina, this was er... interesting as there are boats around us, limited space and gusts of wind guaranteed to spoil your day by blowing you into somebody's pride and joy, but we managed, with a bit of help from the guy from the marina, hanging on to a line for us.
We set off to go towards Congleton full of confidence having done the hard bit ( we thought ) the wind was getting worse and on some of the exposed stretches we were crabbing along, we decided to look for a mooring spot, not so easy on the Mac as it's very shallow and we can't get Micky close to the edge, leaving a Yorkie sized gap at the side has proven to be used on occasion by the said Yorkies, resulting in wet smelly dogs, our first attempt was no good we were about 2 feet from the edge and the stern was aground, now the wind decided to play with us a bit of fun, we were being blown broadside into the bank and could not get away, forward or reverse, as fast as I pushed off the bow and got back to the controls, the wind had pushed us back on to the side, after a lot of revs and even more carefully chosen words we did manage to get away only for the wind to play another trick on us by blowing up the rear pram cover as we approached a narrow bridge with moored boats either side ( bit like a car bonnet blowing open as you are driving ) Ali threw herself on to it, pushed it back down, while I guessed where we were going, we sorted it finally by putting a bag of coal on top!

Our new mooring, still a mile shy of Congleton, but tight to the bank and here we will stay until the wind drops, we may walk in to town tomorrow as it's market day.

Bye for now
Baz and Ali