Peter's Waterways Blog Tides to Denver This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in September 2018, covering the quirks of the tidal passage from Salter's Lode to Denver.

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This summer, as well as our usual canal trips we have had trips on three tidal waters, north, west and east of the country. Our eastern trip was on the River Great Ouse - this was part of our route to the Festival of Water at St Neots. As Fulbourne is 71’ 6” long we have to go through Salters Lode lock on the level - when the tide is at a level that allows both sets of gates to be open without any salt water entering the Middle Level. Due to low water in the Middle Level we arrived just in time, approaching the lock, that the lock keeper had made ready for us with minutes to spare. We got through, just, and sat in the lock entrance as the last of the tide went out. This meant we were sitting on the sand with our propeller partially out of the water.

nbFulbourne. View under the swim.

Waiting for the engine and the tide

The tide turned quickly so we were only aground for about 20 minutes. We took the opportunity to stop the engine and clean the mud box (through which cooling water passes on its way to the engine). This rather worried the other people with boats waiting to go through, as we were completely blocking the exit of the lock to the river.

On our return journey we followed the Denver lockkeeper’s advice and locked through soon after high tide and waited in the Salters Lode lock approach for a couple of hours for the tide to go out. There are those of the crew who can easily walk along the top plank to the front deck (to which there is no access from the inside) and others are more careful. Personally I sit on the plank and shuffle sideways, but it's not a quick process: it's the right knee that doesn't work as well as it might. Peter Scott @peterjohnscott

Approaching Salters Lode from Denver sluice