We made the run down the Woodford River in the ‘summer’ without many pauses and were keen to take our time on the return. The first thing was to complete the work ordered at Riversdale Barges at Ballycommon which is a cracking little yard and marina where Graham and his team of craftsmen build quality boats with an eye to detail and finish that really impressed us.  We knew we would be welcome and our visit be brief as we only had to fit a cover round the stern of a boat that had come in for a wheelhouse (the owners were sick and tired of standing in the rain). Earlier in the week we had borrowed a car and driven over to template so, with the cover ready to go, we were away and up the river again the following morning. This was a relief as the deadline of an ordered kerosene fuel delivery on the Ballycommon moorings that afternoon needed to be met. Getting fuel delivered in England has not always been easy as oil companies make lots of noises about not delivering to boats due to pollution concerns or small filler pipes being too slow. Having added 3” fillers to our tanks a couple of years ago, we hoped to have overcome these objections and, much to our relief, the delivery driver could not have been more helpful or cheerful. That he had just enjoyed a holiday cruise on the Shannon with his family courtesy of a friends loan of a cruiser, may well have helped. With a full tank we were not only able to keep the autumnal chills at bay with the Rayburn, we could get on with making chutneys and preserves with the fruits of the heavily laden hedgerows. Not that this pleased everybody as Eric had fallen in love with Jill’s Blackberry sorbets and, to placate him, Jill made blackberry and apple ‘leather’ in the low heat of the Rayburn’s plate warmer. Once set, Jill cut it into letters and presented it to Eric as ‘Jelly Pirates’!

The one place we determined to stop at was Kiltybardan Lough which we only briefly transited on the way north. With the map showing a large area of water through the channel to our west, we made our way in fully expecting a night at anchor. To our surprise we found a floating jetty which, having no access to land, was even better. Eric, Ted and Joelle took the dinghy to the site marked ‘Crannog’ on our OS map and were surprised, not only to locate it but that they were able to explore it through 18” inches of water. Without doubt it was the best preserved crannog we had found on the entire cruise. To complete his day Eric then caught a large pike while fishing with me from the dinghy in the evening. After a night without needing to lock the doors, although the noise of the road on the nearby shore was a little intrusive, the following morning was truly Autumnal and we waited for the mist to lift before setting out and rejoining the main navigation.

The plan was to press on to the Shannon at Leitrim but, even before the first lock, this looked doubtful as we caught up with a hire boat doing what hire boats never do - dawdling! To our relief the couple on the hire boat were more than happy to let us past and, being in front, Jill and I did so. That we almost immediately came to a lock meant that we had our boat on the jetty, the hire boat standing off, and Ted and Eric floating about behind them. The only decent thing to do was to put the hire boat through and then work the Misfit Mariners boats up. Fortunately the crew of the hire boat, an American couple, said that they were in no hurry and would let us past on the long stretch to the next lock and, an hour and a half later, we found them waiting as promised. While doing the lock, we chatted to the Americans and were amazed to hear that they had both lived on boats in the states, which may have gone some way to explaining their contentment with such a gentle pace and their willingness to accommodate our pushing on. This is not normal for hirers as the only time we had seen a hire boat anything but flat out was when it was being fished from. Hire boats being used in this fashion are called rockhoppers as they just wander where they think/hope the fish are and regularly run aground. They can also be a nightmare to pass as the ‘rules of navigation’ don’t apply to fishing boats apparently!

It was with some relief that we opened the lock gates at the bottom of the canal and motored out onto the Shannon, not that this relief lasted long as there were no moorings free in Leitrim and we had to push on. The water levels on the Shannon had dropped from the highs of a few weeks previously but the flattened vegetation on the banks and the pools of water in the riverside meadows indicated just how bad the flooding had been and we were glad to have missed it. We were all happy to make one last foray onto Lough Key so the next chance of mooring was half way up the Boyle river many miles ahead. An hour and a half later and pretty weary, we arrived at Cootehall only to find two small hire boats on the mooring. - being 30’ long and 30’ apart meant that the remaining 90’ of mooring consisted of three 30’ lengths that were useless to us. Our requests that they move were ignored so we had little choice other than to continue upstream. We finally moored just short of Lough Key.

We were to spend a couple of nights on Lough Key, the highlight of which was being joined by Larry and Christie - the American couple on the hire boat. Christie was delighted to hear that Eric played the whistle and he was soon ‘giving lessons’ (Christie had wanted an Irish Harp but the price asked in Dublin music shops soon put paid to that!). Jill cooked supper and we spent the most pleasant of evenings discussing everything from politics to fuel cells (Larry is clearly one hell of a physicist). After years of George W Bush we were all happy to be reminded that there are compassionate Americans but we were saddened to hear their prediction that Obama’s free health care was unlikely to happen. In our discussions it turned out that Larry and Christie now live in a part of America that consists of low wooded hills and valleys full of trout streams. When asked the size of this Eden we were told how small it was - I was thinking of The Wye Forest - but once the dimensions were given Ted burst out laughing and pointed out that it was the same size as Ireland! The night closed with whiskey, song and Eric playing the piper. Again Lough Key had come up trumps but we were all aware that the summer cruise of the Misfit Mariners was now in its own autumn: work beckoned for myself and Jill, while Ted and Eric’s thoughts were turning to winter moorings back on the canals.

Puppy update! The five pups are thriving. Evidence below.