dom

I'm surprised a couple of the locals didn't show up - especially the notorious lady or Jed Stone.

I'd absolutely stand with them in that case - shame they didn't catch that incident on video. There are significant differences in this case though.

If there was a few minutes of peaceful uncut video leading up to the event, I'd agree with you. In this case however, I have to ask whether the content has been carefully cropped to deliberately distort the view.

I wasn't aware of that. That makes the BA's toll checker highly questionable in my view. It's gone offline in the last few days. I wonder if the two points are connected?

There's clearly much more going on than just what's shown. Why is he filming in the first place? Suggests to me that there has already been a confrontation of some sort. I suspect that rather than "sorry mate, I just need to moor for 5 mins to empty my bins" the Freeman owner probably barked orders at them.

6 of 1, half a dozen of the other. The boat is untolled so technically shouldn't be there.

If you enable sound, there are regular chimes - at least on the half hour, possibly more. Not sure if it's from the cathedral (don't recall ever noticing it having a regular chime) or St.Helen's in Bishopgate. Another thing which suprised me is that they fly in the dark. One was on the ledge earlier preening itself and it was completely dark. It now seems to have gone off somewhere.

That tends to be the best approach with boats! People go on about boat meaning "Bring out another thousand", but I think it's all too often because they've bought things with rose tinted glasses. Someone rebuilt an Elysian around Ely way recently (literally every bolt and screw replaced and repainted) and was selling it for pretty sensible money, but I can't find a trace of it now, so it must have sold. There's another at Potter/Waterside on eBay with a BMC 1.5 and holding tank, but the paintwork looks a bit rough and ready.

Definitely don't buy a petrol. It's not just the hassle of lugging fuel around, but also the risks. Apart from fire and explosion, it's also associated with a lot of carbon monoxide accidents. It's a shame - Topsail had what appeared to be really nice original diesel Appleyard built Elysian recently with a holding tank, but they dropped the price and it sold not long after. NYA also sold one recently - again diesel and holding tank. There's plenty around, but you may need to be quick off the mark now heading into prime boat buying season.

Seems like it might be back now.

I suspect a lot of their code is Python, so it'll probably be a line of code indented with a tab rather than spaces, or something equally ridiculous.

Quite a few just have a sea toilet, so will have a skin fitting in the hull rather than pump-out on the deck. Given the age of a lot of them, sea toilets would have been extremely common when first built. The original models first produced at Ely probably ended up on the Great Ouse network a lot of the time, so pretty unlikely to have tanks fitted back in those days.

Can you imagine being the engineer who deployed whatever broke it and now having to sit there trying to roll things back knowing half the world is impacted

It's really frustating - I caught one sat on the edge this morning, but with its back to the camera. Every time I go back, nothing. I'm quite surprised they nest there (particularly with bells chiming), rather than somewhere like the prison with better access to Mousehold.

It appears there is, but I don't think they'd have been them. The leaves appear to be quite shiny and unusually shaped, which I'm sure I'd have remembered.

Definitely not willows. They had fairly substantial trunks and actually look a bit like oaks in some pictures. I tend to think oak wouldn't manage to stay upright on that type of land, but I think there are a couple on Horning green, so may be a possibility.

I've just noticed the comments on the article, including one about plots being auctioned to unsuspecting buyers. The last auction was actually far more recent - maybe a month or two ago. It's been an ongoing issue for quite a number of years - probably decades now. I don't know why the BA are bothering. I'm all in favour of protecting historic landscapes, but it's a stinking bit of stagnant bog, full of mosquitoes. It'd be no great loss to allow mooring to be dredged and cleared, with a limit set to stop any more extensive development. It's not like it's the only bit of "wet woodland" in the vicinity. It runs right down to the entrance to Bewiderwood, continues on the other side right through to Long Lane, as well as through to Burntfen Broad. It just seems like a classic case of BA on a power trip. The same BA who presumably didn't see fit to protect all the beautiful old trees around the Ferry Inn, which gave the place far more character than its current barren state. I suspect there may well be quite a few nice warm fires in Horning next winter...

I can't believe there's any money left in the planning budget with 8-9 staff, the farce at Irstead, the other TPO at Ludham, etc.

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/24159862.crabbetts-marsh-woodland-norfolk-broads-protected/ Suspect this one will get heated and lead to BA expending large amounts of resources defending actions yet again.

I used to drive through Wicken twice a day for something like 8 years, but have never actually been down to the water there. Seems like the lode is getting incredibly narrow these days from some of the narrowboat videos I've seen.

Things seem to be slowly improving. They must be, as EA have finally moved the Project 31 adrift on the Old West since Christmas. Not going great over on the Cam though. Someone managed to wipe out Upware lock with a car last night, so Reach Lode is currently accessible. I was actually over that way a week or so ago. Reach Lode is like a millpond and it'd make a nice place to spend the winter pottering up and down a few miles of river, but the moorings are very open and not somewhere I'd want to leave a more expensive boat.

That cranage fee is a lot higher than I'd expected. The way they do so many boats at once, I'd thought maybe they'd offer a decent rate to get as many out of the water (and harm's way) as possible. It'd be interesting to know how it all stacks up over the year for a permanent mooring. I find marinas seem to do their best to make fees as obscure as possible. The worst one is the way some mix ex.vat and inc.vat prices on their advertised rates. If it was the Broads, I think I'd be trying to stay in the water year round so you can get trips out but that seems an unlikely prospect in winter with RGO flow rates.

Any signs of osmosis, either whilst you were doing this or during a survey? With an older Broom, I'd probably have considered taking it out over the winter to mitigate osmosis issues, but I'm not sure if yours is new enough not to be too much of a concern for this? Does Jones' yard charge a lot to lift and dry store? The way they do it, I'd assumed the cost would be fairly minimal, but some of what you've said suggests not.

I still don't understand how no-one is questioning whether the already scheduled Bure mouth BA dredging might be a factor in the current situation. https://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/490071/UPDATE-NTM-07-2023-Dredging-works-on-the-Lower-Bure.pdf I'm sure the original document was more specific and they seem to have changed the way the area in question is highlighted, making it much more vague. I can't help but wonder though if the minute they do this, it'll be like removing a plug and vast quantities of water can suddenly move, quite possibly taking a load of silt with it. I've suggested elsewhere that the delay might be funding - but it could also be that they're afraid to do it before things dry out, in case it suddenly shows their culpability in upstream flooding.

Maybe someone should organise a wherry trip to Yarmouth for Dr.P to demonstrate the issue? Obviously it'd be very hard to argue that dredging was being done properly when stuck fast.