Hail to the Hive!

During the summer months everyone who has a boat is out on the canals as much as their life allows and there's also an abundance of people hiring narrowboats for day trips and holidays afloat. This can make certain partys of the network quite busy and finding moorings a little tricky at times. However, in the winter........not so much 😄.

I personally hate the cold and winters especially and yet somehow I absolutely love cruising on our boat in the winter, well as long as the weather isn't too abysmal.

There's hardly any boat traffic in the winter, you'll maybe pass less than 6 boats all day if you cruise for about 6 hours, and sometimes on a short cruise you'll not pass any other moving boats. It's bliss, like you have the whole canal network to yourself.

Also the weather in the winter, when not pissing it down with rain or howling with wind, can be quite clear and fresh and there's been many a morning I was super pleased with myself for getting up early and casting off at 8am to really enjoy the lovely crisp clear winter motnings. The occasional dog walker will pass by walking their dogs and comment' you picked a nice day for it!'

I will usually start up, take the hood cover down from the stern deck, untie the lines and cast off while @millycf1976 is sorting out the wood stove and then making coffee and breakfast. @millycf1976 will usually bring me out 2 stanley flasks of piping hot fresh coffee and whatever the breakfast wrap of the day is and I will munch and sip while chugging forward. The days are short in winter so if you need to move then you only have until about 4pm before it gets dark so it saves time and I quite like eating as I go.

So the summers ( which can be brief) are awesome for canal cruising and busy, but the winter cruising is acrually pretty amazing

Love a bit of #monomad 😜