Then we wait while ‘our’ ship manoeuvres ahead of us.  This involved going round in circles on the spot which isn’t easy when there are three of you tied together and one is a catamaran.

Then we get the all clear to get up close,

The line handler on the boat then releases the line from the boat in order to keep us in position (ie off the walls) as the water level drops.  In between the locks the heavy line is pulled back on to the boat and the lock workers then walk forward using the thin (and therefore less heavy) lines.  We had a small incident when one dock worker let the line drag along the side of the lock where it caught hard and tightened rapidly as we were moving forward.  Brad, very quickly saw what was happening and let his end go as fast as possible so that we didn’t get spun round and smashed into the lock wall.  After a few minutes they managed to free the line on the lock side and start the walk forward again.  Then it happened again.  No harm done but it could have been nasty.

This is the second lock that the webcam pictures show.  The webcam is on the aerial at the top of the building.

Carol and Brad on the front waiting for the descent to start. You can just see our heavy blue line on top of the water .

Kerry and Jonathon take care of the line at the back.

Then the big ship is brought in:

This was quite a moment for us as we are technically in the Pacific.  Mike, Carol and Tashi Delek all the way from the Mediterranean.

It was about 1430  and we were all very hungry.  Carol had hotdogs ready to go.  Minimal effort, sort of tasty and definitely filling with minimal cutlery/plates required so perfect for the occasion.  Not an original idea however and we confess remembering Ria doing this at this point when we crewed for Duncan and her on Sea Topaz several years ago.

and farewell to our lock buddy.