Today, after two hours of foreplay, we got to dress up in life vests and make a mad two hundred yard dash through fast flowing tidal water. But first, We had to fend off some stowaways.

We left our improvised mooring early this morning, and headed thought a surreal landscape of wind turbines…

… for Marmont Priory Lock, where we had made an appointment with the lock keeper. Even though we are heading towards the coast, this lock took our boat uphill. As this part of the country was drained, the land sank, and parts are below sea level. Here’s the water gushing into the lock threatening to inundate the bow of Wharram Percy.

The lock keeper was having none of that “open the ground paddles first” business. These are slow manual hydraulic paddles, and it’s less work to just open the gate paddles slowly.

Since we were heading for Salter’s Lode Lock which only opens at high tide, we had a couple of hours to kill, and we were seduced by a most beautifully landscaped mooring in the village of Upwell.

The mooring was in the shadow of the local church, a 15th century gem…

… with angels supporting the roof…

… along with a few demons…

… and the occasional sinner.

The lectern is a constipated chicken.

There is also a strange wading bird in one of the gravestones on the floor.

The extinct Great Ouse Flamingo? Or just an egret painted red for lent?

While we were there, the parishioners were removing floral arrangements from a recent festival, but there were still some nice ones left.

We arrived at Salter’s Lode in good time and found several other boats waiting to make the tidal passage.

We had plenty of time to bond with the other boaters. Paul the lock keeper duly arrived, and we waited for the tidal side to reach the right level. The lock was in a narrow and awkwardly angled channel leading to a wider river with a fast current as the tide came in. Getting out was not too bad, but we watched a boat coming against the current try to turn into the lock channel.

“He’s turned too early,” I said.

“Sshhh,” Paula said.

“He’s turned too early,” Paul the lock keeper said.

The lock keeper and the boaters waiting to go out watched the boat get stuck at the wrong angle in the lock entrance, eventually back out, go too far upstream, ram into the bank several times trying to turn, eventually make another attempt at the lock entrance, ram a cement wall taking a chunk off, along with a fair amount of paint from the boat, and eventually use full throttle to slowly lever the back end of the boat into the right position to get in. We gave them a round of applause.

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said. “I know I can do better than than that, and they still got in, in the end.”