Lmst

This week’s midweek walk is on Thursday, open to everyone join us!
https://www.metropolitan-walkers.org.uk
#ramblersuk #walking #londonwalks #limehouse #stratfordlondon #canal #eastlondon #waterways #lovelondon

Balance flows like a meadow 🏞🏡
#Canal #Composure
#Placidity #Tamarac
#Reflective #Mellow
#Temperate #Visual
#Residential #Angle

#sunset at a canal in the Netherlands

#canal #reflections #kanal #auringonlasku #kanaali #heijastus #reflektion

The sun is setting and the light reflects on the water in a canal. You can also see reflections from the trees growing on both sides of the canal

It's a good thing canal lock gates are carefully balanced, because this lets one person push them open and closed. (It can take considerable effort if a boat has unbalanced the gate by crashing into it.)

To open a gate, when water levels on both sides are equal, push the beam. It's long, so it acts as a lever that reduces the effort. The beam of a lock gate is sometimes steel, but most often oak, as pictured. This beam is particularly bulky.

#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #lock

A man's hand and a windlass laid atop the end of a square-cut oak beam beside a steel grab handle.

This photo focuses on the end of the beam. The beam is part of a massive oak lock gate (not shown).

A lock beam is a lever that lets boaters open a wooden lock gate that can range from a very small 750 kilos to a typical large size of 1500 kilos (about ¾ to 1½ tons). This beam is probably 50×50 centimetres or 20×20 inches—and has a flat end. Its full length isn't shown in the photo but might be 7 meters or 22 feet. The very end of the beam is bound by a reinforcing, flat steel bar, to keep it from splintering.

There's a solid steel grab handle anchored in the top surface of the beam, for boaters to grab and pull, to start the gate moving. The end of the beam is painted white, though the paint has worn away on top, as has the wood, from years of use and from getting tapped by windlasses. (Boaters usually have those in one hand as they reach for the grab handle with both hands.)

The windlass in the photo is a type of spanner or wrench, one piece of steel, with a square hole on one end that fits the lock mechanism. (Mechanism not shown.) For easier winding, each side of the windlass' L-shaped handle is about 30 centimeters or 1 foot, and about 2 centimeters or ¾ inch round in diameter.

In the background is a dirt towpath and some unmowed grass. Below the beam is red-brown brick paving with some ridges set in to offer some traction to boaters as they strain to push the beam.

While the #Britsh #canals have much to recommend them, when you have the open spaces of the #Norfolk #Broads on your #doorstep it's hard to say which are best.

I like to think I can balance the various differences fairly as we are lucky enough to have a small #canal #workers #cottage that fronts the #Bridgewater #Canal at #PrestonBrook where we plan to keep our #canoe after our house move.

This week there's been a half dozen gorgeous flying insects visiting the boat as I pass by.

They have silken black wings. At first I thought: maybe some sort of moth? Then I decided: maybe a dragon fly or damselfly that has pointy black wings?

They never stop, they just fly over, so no pics. And anyway, while operating a narrowboat is not a great time to try for a photo.

#CanalLife #canal #UK #insect #dragonfly #damselfly #boating #boat #narrowboat

Bangkok, November 2024

📷 Xpan, 45 mm lens
🎞 Kodak Aero 100

#SurMonCanal #TalesFromTheKhlong #Khlong #Canal #Bangkok #Thailand #Thaïlande #photographie #photography #xpan #hasselbladxpan #Film #FilmIsNotDead #Analog #Argentique #panorama #StreetPhotography

EN: vertical panoramic photo in color with very strong red tints of a blurred boat passing in front of concrete installation and under a tangle of electrical wire. On the other side, a complex staircase structure rises above the canal

FR: photo panoramique format portrait, en couleur avec des rouges très marqués, dd'un bateau flou qui passe devant des structures en béton et sous un enchevêtrement de fils électriques. De l'autre côté s'élève une straucture assez complexe qui est en fait un escalier

EN: vertical panoramic photo in color with very strong red tints of a pipe between two bridges, take from below. Below the pipe and bridges is concrete and below that, wood resting in the darkness

FR: photo panoramique format portrait, en couleur avec des rouges très marqués, d'un tuyau entre deux ponts, pris du dessous. En bas, du béton, et encore en dessous, des rondins de bois dans la pénombre

EN: vertical panoramic photo in color with very strong red tints of a complex metal and concrete structure on the other side of the canal, including an electric post, metro rails and a staircase. Light has leaked on the bottom, giving the water a weird red extra wave

FR: photo panoramique format portrait, en couleur avec des rouges très marqués, d'une structure complexe en métal et en béton de l'autre côté du canal, comprenant des rails de métro aérien, un poteau électrique et un escalier. En bas, la lumière a fui, ce qui fait une nouvelle vague rouge bizarre sur l'eau

Bloemgracht Amsterdam

#cityscape #architecture #grachten #jordaan #bloemgracht #canalsofamsterdam #canal #reflections #ships

Living in an canal house (Grachtenpanden) is a dream come true.

Amsterdam, May 2022

#canal #canalhouses #Dutch #amsterdam #Netherlands

I apologise. I've relaxed now. Since I moved the boat ahead 2 spots, NOBODY has crashed into me. I picked an unfortunate place to stop, before. My bad.

Sometimes boating is like bumper cars at the fair—the boats themselves are built to take it. My peace of mind suffers when many tonnes of steel hit my 17 tonnes (18¾ tons) of steel.

On reflection, what I meant to say was: boating is an adventure, also on windy days.

#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #wind #weather #storm #gust #fun

@Wolf

When you're ready to go boating, for last-minute prices I recommend https://www.latelink.com

I used that site back when I still hired (rented) boats.

LateLink aggregates all the big and small hireboat companies.

The site is hilariously, awfully unusable, in the style of the 1990s Internet. 😁 It's an adventure just finding the best boat for you. But it's fitting because narrowboating is a throwback activity.

#BoatHire #UK #tourism #canal #boating #narrowboat #CanalBoat #barge #holiday

Eight times in 3½ hours a boat crashed into me while I was tied up along the shore.

I have just moved the boat forward, leap-frogging two boats.

And in the process I myself hit 2 boats — inevitable, unfortunately, but I was unwilling to continue being crashed into by people for whom the wind is somehow a surprise.

#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #navigation #wind #hazard #storm #sunny

Six boats have crashed into me in the past 3 hours, scraping and bouncing all the way down the length of the boat. The wind is too strong for occasional- and hire-boaters but it doesn't stop them, so they get blown into me as they clear the trees.

I want to move but the strong wind also means I cannot move the boat. There are 2 boats immediately ahead of me and I could never clear them.

#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #navigation #wind #hazard #storm #sunny

Oudezijds Achterburgwal Amsterdam

#cityscape #amsterdam #holland #streetphotography #architecture #holland #noordholland
#oudezijdsachterburgwal #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #wallen
#gevels #facades
#canal #canalsofamsterdam #grachten

Manchester Waterside - Canvas Print

https://justin-farrimond.pixels.com/featured/manchester-waterside-justin-farrimond.html?product=canvas-print

Buildings tower over the Rochdale Canal in this black and white photograph taken on Oxford Street, Manchester.

#PhotoOfTheDay #BlackAndWhitePhotography #Manchester #CanvasPrint #Photography #Art #Travel #InteriorDesign #PhotographyLovers #Canal

Black and white portrait photograph showing tall buildings either side of a canal. The image is shown printed upon a box canvas.

Chatting with other boaters along the canal, one of them mentioned that the Environment Agency (EA) has closed a broken river lock at Barnwell for repairs.

😮 There's currently no way to get the boat to the east coast, to join 2 other boats. Together we were planning to cross The Wash (a bit of sea) to Boston, subject to tide, daylight, and pilot advice.

We'll see what it means for our July plans. Maybe EA's repairs will be quick?

#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #lock #closure #EA

Blissworth tunnel is long, but at least I can see the pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel right from the start—as soon as my eyes adapt to the dark. (Amazing engineering, when you think about how straight that tunnel is.)

Tomorrow it's a visit to Canal & River Trust's canal museum, then right back through the tunnel.

I have a work call in the afternoon and the mobile signal is better on the north side of the tunnel.

#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #tunnel #CRT #museum

This windmill near the river #Amstel, is not in #Amsterdam but in #Ouderkerk, Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. It is an old polder windmill. It is not in use anymore but it is preserved as a historical monument. Its name is De Zwaan, the swan. #windmill #canal #green