After two nights in Ellesmere we got a fairly early start on return to Middlewich. The first step of our return was to proceed a short way past Ellesmere to the “winding hole” (pronounced as you would a wind which blows). A winding hole is a wide spot in the canal where you can turn a narrowboat around to go the other direction. Normally the canal is not wide enough to reverse direction, at least not without great difficulty. When you pass a winding hole in the course of your travels they are very obvious, but when you are looking for one every little indentation of the shore line looks like it should be the winding hole. Eventually we came to the actual winding hole and it was obvious. You do not (at least I do not) make a U-turn with a narrowboat. It is a case of pointing the bow into the winding hole as far as possible while swinging the stern of the boat. Backing up and repeating as you slowly change direction. A narrow boat does not steer well in reverse. So you back up as straight as possible, then bring the rudder over hard and gun the engine. That pushes a lot of water past the rudder to push stern over without moving forward very much. Repeat several times and you have reversed direction.
We planned to spend that night in Whitchurch. We would tie up in the city limits and walk into to town for dinner. On the way to Whitchurch we stopped at the Moss area and the horticultural wives explored. Karen told me that it was weird to walk over the spongy peat moss extending further than they could see. That it was just like the stuff that we used to buy before we became ecologically aware. After and early lunch we headed down the canal.
When you bring a narrowboat to the canal side to tie it up you bring the boat to as slow a speed as possible, sometimes with large applications of reverse, and then jump ashore with the spring line (a line (rope) firmly attached to the cabin at the center of the boat) and take several turns of the line around a bollard to halt the boat. The friction of the line around the bollard helps to stop the very heavy iron narrowboat. Experienced sailor (Navy many years ago, and sailing yacht more recently) Schuyler managed to get a finger caught between the line and bollard, mashing it very badly. Very painful and bloody. (I was not there; this is my understanding of what I was told).
After Schuyler mashed his finger he and Marcia were sitting on the stern rail of the boat deciding what to do next when Schuyler “fainted”. He just rolled over backwards off the rail and into the canal. Marcia jumped in after him to get his head above water. Fortunately, the canal is only about waist deep. Schuyler did not immediately wake up. Marcia had to hold his head above for more than a few seconds. Shortly he came to, but they were stuck in the canal. Some young men in a nearby boat helped to haul them out and their mother was an RN who helped to clean up and cover Schuyler’s finger. Schuyler has an issue with his vagus nerve that can trigger this sort of incident.
Karen and I first heard of the incident when I got the phone call from Marcia. She asked about a first aid kit and what I thought they should do. It turned out that there were no first aid kits on the boat. I suggested she call the hire company to send a car to pick them up. I was sure that such a solution would not be a problem. As I was having this discussion, Karen chased down the phone number of the hire boat company. Marcia and I went back and forth with Schuyler who insisted that this had happened to him before and that he would be OK. Neither Marcia nor I could convince him otherwise. So we agreed to meet, as planned, in Whitchurch.
Some pictures are at: https://goo.gl/photos/UzXb1e3GEhhNGMaTA