NickAndAnne

City of Durham is entered again, and the excitement is building already!

Voted x 10.

Bu**er! Sorry, quoted the wrong post! I was (and still am) laughing at Cuthound in the street shouting Squeak Squeak. I am really not a heartless person laughing at lonely baby animals, honest!

Greenie for that - I can't stop laughing at this!!

Yes, it was a no-win situations! Delighted that the boat is back with its rightful owners, and Junior, I owe you a pint for being the he cause of your late night vigil.

Well its 9 pm so Cheers everyone!

Good advice, thank you. We might have some other information that might aid the investigation so once it is confirmed that Rare Bear is indeed the missing boat, we will offer up what we have to the Police.

Yes, we photographed Rare Bear.

There were three people on the boat we photographed. An older man, a woman, and a younger chap who was on his knees doing something at floor level.

He doesn't look much like the guy we captured in our photo.

Great job Junior! Lets hope this is now sorted! If it turns out to be Rare Bear, then the pics may turn out to be useful after all.

Yes there is. I have a view into the deck area, but as it shows people's faces it would be inappropriate to post on here. I will keep the picture though, just in case... BTW, we only took two pictures - what I have been posting are zoomed in sections of the original picture., Old camera I am afraid, it doesn't do emails. We took the photos on our camera, an oldish Canon jobby. I have had to photograph the camera screen with my phone to post what I can on here.

This is the very first time I have regretted using an iPad, otherwise I would

Of course you are right, we did Sandon Lock after Weston Lock. My apologies, must be the excitement. I have a nice sharp photo, it is just on my camera, and I don't have the cable to upload it to my computer Not sure what else I can achieve by going back at this stage. We really need either someone to eliminate this as a genuine boat, or for the owners to act further. We will keep a watch out in case it moves again in this direction. If it is genuine then they are probably on their own mooring. If not, they have a pretty good place on the offside to continue the work on it.

They appear to be on the rubbing strake:

They would be heading towards Aston rather than Sandon. We are slightly ahead but will keep ears and eyes open in case they pass us.

The obvious one in the picture appears to be, but the rest look like brass.

1)Yes2)Yes 3)See below From the zoomed photo on the camera. I am sure I said NORTH...

There was a chap on his knees doing some painting, But of course remember that this could all be a horrible coincidence!

It was facing north towards Stone.

I tried zooming in on the photo - the index number is painted on the front top edge, but unfortunately the glare from the sun obscures it.\ The lady on board demanded to know if we were searching for the missing boat. If she were genuine she would obviously deny that this was the one. One the other hand, if it were the stolen boat, then they would probably say the same thing. These thoughts flashed through the brain very quickly, but Anne had already replied that she liked the boat name, and by then further explanation was too late as we had passed by.

Sadly I have left the camera cable at home, so I have taken a pic of the camera with my phone. Sorry, I don't know how to turn it the right way round. Apart from being the obvious shape, it did strike me as odd that it was moored on the offside, by what I think is now an empty house by the Saracens Head.

I have lost count of the number of times people have said "You're a long way from home!" when they see the boat name. I don't bother contradicting it now....

We have an ex-Canal Time boat, and have had a very happy couple of years so far with it. Of course, these boats are not everyone's cup of tea, but I have noticed how much nicer other boaters are since we put the BCN Challlenge sign on the front! So much so that I haven't taken it off!