I never knew the Sargasso Sea had locks on it.

With a final look back at the Carlsberg brewery we left the river and entered the Grand Union canal, Northampton arm.

We soon found that a warm welcome awaited us. The gates on the first four locks were simply clogged with weed. That was without the blanket weed that insisted on clinging to the prop.

Narrow and shallow, some of the lodes had more water and less weed.

As we got into the thick of the flight things improved somewhat although some of the pounds were a bit low, as we are fairly shallow drafted it didn't cause us any problems. It took us a couple of locks to get back into the rhythm but we were soon making good progress.

Jill opens the bottom gates and once the boat is in lifts the top paddles, she then moves on to prepare the next lock. Once the lock has filled I open the top gate, take the boat out, shut the gate, drop the paddles and move into the next. Repeat as often as required.

 Through the echoing vault of the M1 bridge.

Jill takes a well earned rest at the top lock before we waved farewell to the flight.

It had taken us four and a half hours to get up the flight, the first four locks had taken two of the hours.

At Gayton Junction we took a right and headed towards Braunston. We moored after a mile or so, just opposite the West Coast Main Line.

Watch this space..............