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Hello, I was out cruising with my husband on the Kennet and Avon canal when I had the misfortune to fall in and as it was deep to inadvertently swallow a mouthful of water. I fell in under a bridge and found that the towpath was so undercut I couldn't kick myself out on the bank as my feet had disappeared under the bank and the water was at least six feet deep. Luckily a passer by came and hauled me out as I had been going on ahead of the boat to prepare the next lock and my husband was nowhere in sight. I have been horribly and disgustingly ill since then. What I would like to say is that the canal seems to me to be nothing better than an open sewer, as I have actually seen people emptying their elsans directly into it, and have a photo to prove this, and that all along the canal are a series of permanently or semi permanently moored boats that never seem to have gone anywhere all winter let alone the pump out or elsan emptying point. These boats are being lived on. Where are they putting their sewage? In the canal of course. I would like to call on CART to police these boats and to find out exactly what they do with their sewage and fine them accordingly. Farmers are not allowed to pollute their land or nearby waterways in any way and would be heavily fined if they did so. Why should these dirty people get away with doing so? Incidentally I sent the photo to both CART and the EA and NEITHER of them did a thing about it. Spineless, or rather, just turning a blind eye to something they know is going on everywhere. I am sure I am not the first person to suffer a horrible illness after having fallen in this dirty canal (where my husband used to swim regularly as a boy - BEFORE it was restored and filled with dirty boaters) as the assistant at the chemists where my husband went for my medication told him she frequently has people in suffering after falls in the canal. Obviously not everyone does this and there are probably many more clean and well behaved boaters than there are dirty ones, but these dirty ones are spoiling the whole canal for the rest of us and turning it into something akin to the Thames before Joseph Bazalgette's sewage system was introduced. Will it take someone getting Cholera before something is done? Every time I think what I might have ingested I shiver in horror. Flicka

I've been looking at the dark patch of water down the side of the boat these nights and thinking it would be a bad place to end up. (So don't fall in) Then I thought, if I ran a length of steel-core washing line from the bow well deck drain hole down to the rear button (or something else around there, might need to add a weld-in), then I would have a grab rail the whole length of the boat. Not enough to get out, but enough to move along to a better place. Do you think it would snag? I reckon a 3mm washing line will sit between the rubbing strakes and not get hooked up on anything. I'm thinking of it as a semi-permanent fitting, unlike fenders which of course I never leave down while cruising 😉 Thoughts please..? 🤔 I know I also need some kind of re-boarding ladder. That's a separate problem and maybe something to do before this.

So, Just saw this in the Tilergraph, Well done to all involved. Just made me wonder how many stories people have of 'near death experiences' or Saved by a passer by. I know we had to escort one gentleman (who happened to be the marina manager,but will mention no names)back to his boat after having an afternoon 'Trying' Jack Daniels on a friends boat. without us there i'm 100% he'd have gone in. Anyway, happy reading. Nice to have a good news story