Pets aboard.

Thank you for all the advise. we are cruising from sharpness way up to Gloucester . We will be defiantly doing a lot of short trips up the canal to Gloucester and turn round and go back. With some shopping in between! We will indeed go for a reckie and watch from above the lock and speak to the lock keeper. my husband did say we decided on Saul marina as it was half a hour from home but maybe we should have looked at the route from marina on the canal. Goggle earth doesn't quite do it . Nice marina though. My rose tinted glasses are off now, and reality kicks in. I didn't think of weirs and high rivers etc, a lot more to it than the dream of owning a narrow boat!

Thank you everyone, I'm sure we will be ok, I expect everyone feels nervous on their maiden voyage! We have read many books and watch countless U Tube videos plus the canal and waterways safety tutorials but it's putting it into practice. Trying to master the knots. Thanks again.

Hello our first post. we take ownership of our first Narrowboat on Tuesday both very excited. But very nervous. we have a marina sorted at Saul junction , the thing is, after spending a few hours following the canal up to Gloucester via Google Earth we are faced with that huge lock. We are complete novices and the thought of going through feels us with dread. we have chatted to someone at the marina and to our amazement we are so surprised how many people don't sail their boats and have not gone further than the marina entrance or a little further! Is a ships lock treated any different that a normal smaller lock. we know it has a lock keeper along this stretch and we have a few bridges to navigate before we get there.but! we won't be going out just yet as we have got to get our cat and dog their boat legs first. Any advise please.