Tag Archives: travel

Bridgewater Canal Breach in UK

If you haven’t heard of the narrowboat community in the UK, you’re missing something wonderful to know about. There’s a system of canals throughout the UK, and around 9000 ‘live-aboards’, many retirees, many YouTubers, own narrowboats and travel these canals. Many more are not living aboard, but have or rent narrowboats for holidays or seasons. This lifestyle has become a way for people to live less expensively, and sustainably as well. Most have solar panels and some are going all electric now. Most use diesel power, traveling about 2 miles per hour if I get that right. And there are a very few steam operated ones. It’s a slow, calm pace, allowing for peaceful viewing of nature. Mostly, all you hear is the sound of the small diesel put put putting.

It’s not for everyone. You have to love the slower pace. And most areas where you can moor up for the night, won’t let you stay more than a few days. If you want stay for a longer time, you have to find a marina and rent a slip. I think they do it this way to allow room for everyone to have a mooring as they pass through. You see some fiberglass ‘cruisers’ along the way, but the canals only allow for a narrow beam, so most cruisers would are small. You won’t see a 60 foot fiberglass (what we call a yacht) cruiser. Lately, I believe I am seeing ‘wide narrow boats’ here and there, but they would be restricted from some areas based on size. Remember you’re passing oncoming narrowboats as well, in these narrow straits. Some of the boats are small and maybe not in the best of shape; others are gleaming specimens of the good life, the way it is everywhere. Narrowboats are steered from the rear, right out in the open, although some are putting up canvas covers. But you look ALLLL the way forward as you steer, kind of like a sailboat. Imagine being 60 feet from the bow, steering. And some of the bridges are just wide enough for the boat and a few inches per side. Amazing. Many couples own narrowboats, but there are single women as well, and single men. Lots of pets, both dogs and cats. There’s a toe path along these canals where people can moor alongside and go for a walk or into town. There are sanitation stops for getting water on board and for taking care of all of the waste. Not my favorite viewing part, but part of the experience, nonetheless.

The canals are operated using locks and even a canal aqueduct, the only one of its kind. People who travel on narrowboats have to leave their boat, walk up the path and operate the lock to enter it, and then again to exit. Like the Panama canal on a tiny scale, comparatively. It’s the only way to manage the dramatic landscape there. By the way, these canals are often higher up than the surrounding land, built on berms or structures high above the land.

What makes this canal system unique in my opinion, is the amazing feat of engineering from the Victorian era, to build and sustain this lifeline, pre-railroads. Some lock ‘systems’ consist of multiple locks, back to back, when the elevation change is dramatic. Interestingly, there is a camaraderie among these boaters, similar…no exactly like…what you see in the US among live-aboards here, and they work together at the locks to help one another out when the timing allows it.

Narrowboats are usually under 60 feet long, because there are tight turns along the way, and often boaters have to find a ‘winding hole’ which is a wide area allowing these long boats to swing around and reverse course. Along the Bridgewater canal is an aqueduct, Barton Swing Aqueduct, which takes these narrowboats OVER the River Irwell. This Barton Swing Aquaduct looks like a steel swing bridge, but it is a part of the Bridgewater canal and therefore, has water in it. When a ship approaches along the River Irwell, a shipping lane, these superstructures require that the aqueduct swing out of the way. So at that time, water in the aqueduct (all 80,000 gallons) is held in by walls dropped into place on each end, and then the structure, including water, swings out of the way. By the way, this aqueduct was built in 1761. And, in case you’re wondering. There are also blocking walls that drop on either end of the canal itself, to hold water in while the Aqueduct swings around. Amazing.

I believe Queen Victoria’s seal is on that structure. These canals criss-cross the entirety of the country and are used all day, every day, by boaters whose lifestyle revolves around those waterways. As the boaters cruise along slowly, they pass wildlife, domesticated animals, people’s homes, small towns, huge towns, and one another. It’s a very tight knit community, even with as many boats as there are. I’ve watched these folks on YouTube for years now, so much so that I can be watching one channel and see a couple from another one whose boat I recognize. It’s not like being there, but it’s the next best thing.

A few days ago, the Bridgewater canal was breached due to a massive amount of rainfall, one month’s worth in two days. This part of the canal is higher than surrounding land, atop a large berm like structure, so when it breached, it drained water out. One YouTuber threw his drone up and got footage. I watched his channel when the water was down only a few inches. Now there’s a few inches of water REMAINING in that part of the canal. This person’s images are mostly what is shown on the news. His channel is Taylors Aboard a Narrowboat. But there are many, many channels. By the way, along the canal there are structures in place to hold water in, in the event of a breach. So I expect to hear more about the overall condition of that canal as days pass.

It is heartbreaking to see the devastation, and those affected boats will surely be grounded for months and months. It will take a massive amount of manpower and money to repair the damage to the canal, but I know they will start as soon as the land dries out. They will have to repair the canal structure completely in that area, before they can even let water flow and get marine equipment in there. It will be another huge engineering feat to watch.

Area around Manchester is flooded such that cars are floating, barely visible, and homes have been inundated and evacuated. Many people are displaced or stranded right now. And there is a freeze warning in the entire UK now. I hope the stranded boaters can manage.

So, check out narrowboats in the UK. It will be worth your time to see that lifestyle; I recommend YouTube. Just search narrowboat and you’ll be hooked. It is an amazing culture, an amazing feat of engineering, and a bunch of lovely folks living out there on their narrowboats. As I said, I’ve never been there, but still, I love getting to know these folks through YouTube, and I can even recognize some parts of the canals now. Check it out.

Perspective

Everyone should have the opportunity to be made to feel so small as to be hard to see. Everyone should have the opportunity to be reminded how inconsequential we humans are. I have had that feeling twice in life: Once at the Grand Canyon and once in France, standing before Notre Dame Cathedral before it burned.

We see pictures and videos all the time about such historic landmarks, but standing right there, well, it is life changing. I’ll tell you why. First, you get to know how very small you are standing before such grandeur; and you realize that compared to the skill it took to create such a grand example of architecture, you are insignificant. How small we are is especially apparent when we see the Grand Canyon up close. I thought, “I’m really just a very, very tiny biological entity, not so special after all, here and gone so quickly in the grand scheme that I don’t matter at all.” Hmmm.

In our society, and maybe even in all of them, we seem to have the feeling that we are more important than we are. We’re really not the center of the universe and we’re not that special. If you doubt it, do visit Notre Dame Cathedral. Think about the incredible talent and skill of the craftsmen who built Notre Dame Cathedral! That magnificent building, that majestic architectural phenomenon was built in 1163, taking over a century to build. And it stood strong and glorious until it burned in 2019. I cried that day. Still, I get choked up thinking about it. I feared it would be the end of the magic. They rebuilt it, by the way, with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of skilled craftspeople using historic methodology to the extent possible. It was an effort that had to happen. I could not have gone undone.

At the Grand Canyon, not only did I feel invisible compared to the magnificence of the canyon, but I was reminded…in full color…of history. The canyon wasn’t built by craftsmen with genius in muscles and fingertips, but by nature, over immense stretches of time. And there I was, barely a blink in that time continuum. It put things in perspective in a colossal way. In other words, it put me in my place.

If you visit the canyon you will learn that the ocean once covered that space. I don’t remember how many years ago it was, but there were the sea creatures, right there, forever pressed into their historic layer, undeniably revealing the presence of the ocean once upon a time. I was amazed. We hear stories about these things, but we never really, really hear them.

Seeing these two massive and glorious paragons threw me into a state of contemplation I wish I had experienced sooner in my life. I felt incredibly blessed to have seen such grand sites, and was quiet, for a long while, thinking. In the Cathedral, I know others felt that same feeling. In that grand hall, surrounded by a thousand people, there was not a sound, other than soft footfalls. The grandeur commanded respect, and it was freely given.

I realize that my own insignificant body is also a miracle of creation, with billions of cells working together in systems that have to work perfectly in order for me to live. So I do matter and in that way, I am also grand and I am important. But it is about perspective. I am a speck, dust ultimately, and I will pass through life so fast I won’t register on any detector. Nobody will stand near me and marvel in a thousand years. In a couple of generations nobody will remember me at all. Centuries after I am reduced to dust, these two grand sites I speak of will still exist, each a reminder of deep history, each no doubt putting others in mind of perspective.

Welcome back, Notre Dame Cathedral. I have missed you these five years.

Ah Crap. There Goes Jaguar

Photo by Kamaji Ogino on Pexels.com

Once in another lifetime, I owned a red Jaguar with light tan leather interior. It was one of my favorite cars ever. Beautiful, solid, tight, fast. Car. Car car car. I loved that car, and I had to have a good job, paying good money in order to afford it! I am talking about the Jaguar CAR.

I hope you have seen the new Jaguar ads, which have nothing to do with cars. Any cars. What they are, is a collection of woke…people…who knows what kind…trying to be unique and there are no CARS in sight or sound. But, they’re copying every other woke collection of people trying to be unique. This crap is getting old. Young people are STILL trying to be unique by copying everyone else! Maybe they don’t know what unique means. In any case, they copy their older brothers and sisters by trying to be unique. hahaha. You can’t make this stuff up. They are probably all middle children. Once AGAIN we see a collection of…people…trying to be as counterculture as they can manage…and it is SO BORING, so already done.

But I digress. Jaguar is…uh, WAS… one of the MOST sought-after cars with the iconic hood ornament that NOBODY could afford unless you were buying an old, used one. Like I did. Ah, but not now. heh heh heh. Watch what happens to this brand. Ever hear of Bud Light? Ever hear of ‘Go woke; go broke’? The new ads actually advertise counterculture wokism, not cars, which as we all know is the giant kiss of death.

I saw their new ‘ad’ and my exact response was, “Ah CRAP there goes Jaguar”. I’m not wrong. I haven’t BEEN wrong with my predictions. This means I’m mainstream, I guess. But I WILL mourn the murder of Jaguar. Bud Light, I didn’t care, except that I didn’t have to watch that guy in a woman costume anymore. I didn’t drink Bud anything. Tractor Supply had a close brush, and I will never shop at Target again. No biggie. But for the murder of Jaguar, I weep.

Wait, is it murder? Or is it suicide? I think it’s suicide. If it is suicide, then they get exactly EXACTLY what they deserve. Goodbye Jaguar. I will miss you.

And all of the Jag owners, probably out to eat in an expensive restaurant, wearing expensive clothes, looking well manicured and young…You are the end of the age of coolness.