Well the season is now over. Many thanks to all our guests this year and to those who have booked for next year and 2017.
Also a huge thanks to Glen who makes our lives so much easier and always lights up the boat when she comes, don’t let her know I said that though.
Lady also deserves a mention for her sterling work.
Finally to my lovely wife Gina who it is an absolute joy to work with.
At last a breakfast cooked for her.
Sitting in Salthouse Dock Liverpool, sunshine, a light cooling breeze. What a great way to work!
So lucky we can enjoy our work, Veronica, an Australian guest, took this picture just to prove it.
Our last cruise of the season and here we are once again toasting Liverpool in bubbly as we sail in.
What a fab place to visit, excuse the pun!
We are proud and thrilled to be finalists in the Lancashire Tourism Awards #LTA15.
Breck Apartments, Blackpool @BreckApartments & The Woodland Spa @TheWoodlandSpa , Burnley are the other finalists.
What illustrious company.
http://www.lancashiretourismawards.com/2015/09/30/lancashire-tourism-awards-2015-finalists-announced/
Alan and Wendy, happy upcoming golden Wedding anniversary.
This is what Glen did for them
This was a first for us on the canal, a Terrapin maybe?
Well an amazing run down #wiganlocks. We did it in 3 hours! A new record.
Well done team Teal
Another fabulous day and so late in September. Here we are near the top of Wigan flight, yes honestly Wigan!
Great picture taken by one of our guests, thanks Derek. Truly was taken this evening and no special effects this really is Lancashire!
Well almost the end of the season now. Just two cruises left and we are looking forward to them as they pass through the great Lancashire countryside and then down Wigan to Liverpool, a great trip and fab , excuse the kind of pun, place to end the season. Got tickets to a preview of the Russian Space exhibition at the science museum, really good, Gina tolerated it for a quck break up in the big smoke. An yes that was London in the sun in the picture.
Don’t think we will look to the Russian space program for cabin designs, thats for 3 people!
Woke up to a blue sky and low hanging fog, fabulous. What a great morning, and to top it off there goes a Kingfisher, amazing!
We are so lucky up here in Yorkshire to be able to moor in spots like this!
Another glorious end to a lovely day on the L&L having done the amazing Bingley 5 Rise.
Whatever the weather the 5 Rise is magnificent, but on a glorious day like today it shines!
This has to be the best conversion of an oil rig escape pod, I think thats what was, ever. Amazing paint job, LOVE IT
Skippers night kicks off with cocktails and a selfie!
This time it really is a selfie.
What a glorious morning and promises to be another lovely day up here. Does a shadow count as a selfie??
Moored up at a lovely spot on the Aire and Calder, lovely weather and amazing sunset
Lancashire is one of the biggest surprises for our guests, yes there is the industrial history,but there is also fabulous vistas and countryside.
We love the Lancashire cruises.
So when you are on a hotel boat and your fridge, double door American style, starts playing up, what do you do, well you crane it out and crane a new one in of course!
Many thanks to Currys, delivery in 24 hours, and Pennine Boats in Skipton who operated the crane on a weekend when they are usually closed.
It was a good job we designed things so we could get it out of the kitchen and new one in.
Flying fridges indeed!
Many congrats to @garyverity for his well deserved knighthood. We think a great reflection on all the wonderful people at Welcome to Yorkshire.
#chichotelboat #leedsliverpool
Well seems summer has arrived at last, another lovely sunny day as we visited the birth of the modern canals at Worsley.
Lovely to see all the guests sitting out on top enjoying the weather and the amazing views.
#Chichotelboat Liverpool is brilliant, anyone who gets a chance to sail in and spend time in Salthouse Dock really should.
We are being spoilt with the Mersey River Festival and Northern Boat show but it is great. Also some guests who will be with us later this year came to the dock side as they are on a stop ion Princess Cruises doing a cruise around Britain, what a coincidence!
Here are a few pictures, I think I will need to set up a Liverpool Gallery.
Loving it!
The RSPB is saying that Kingfishers, Curlew and lapwings are threatened species. Well then we are very lucky on the Leeds Liverpool as we frequently see all three. Fingers crossed that continues.
Great first trip into Salthouse dock Liverpool.
Thanks to CRT guys and volunteers.
Really interesting trip in and great mooring
“Where are we now? Oh yes, Liverpool”
Met up today with guests, and friends, who are walking the entire 127 and a quarter miles of the L&L. Well done Jan and Kev, a heck of a holiday!
We are very proud that as well as our recent inspection re confirming our 5 Stars we can now confirm our 5 , the top mark, for our Food Hygiene Rating. Quality experience and high hygiene standards are things we are very proud of and it is wonderful to have external assessors confirm we are achieving it.
Well down the flight in well under 4 hours, despite not having our regular hobbler with us!
Well done team
Well down the flight today , lets see what time we do it in!
Lovely morning this morning
But what a sunset last night
What wonderful weather and a great day.
Tea on the Burnley Mile
Then through the Gannow Tunnel
Then what a great sunset to end a glorious day
What a surprise, a Black Swan at Rodley!
Lovely time in Leeds, down the river to Thwaites mill a great water mill then overnight in a lovely quiet spot.
Great city
New season started well, wonderful weather.
Last night was our inaugural Skippers Night, 7 courses and a choice of menus. Seemed to go down well and adds another feature to our cruises. Well done Gina on making it all work
.
Exciting, just commissioned our spa showers with water filtered through a variety of stones filtering the calcium and chlorine out of the water.
Well the new season is about to start, we are off tomorrow! Great year planned with some fab new trips, particularly into Liverpool.
Heres to some good weather!
All done with the blacking, looking good. All aok now lets fill up the dock.
After a lot of thought, do we soda blast, bead blast, slurry blast, two pack, bituman, comastic? We finally decided to clean back as much as possible fo the two pack, then use comastic. It seems a bit less brittle and adheres well. The two pack did us for over 5 years so not too bad but where it did get scrapped it allowed water in where it flaked off. So we will see how the Comastic goes . We have had the work done at the new, though over 200 year old, dry dock at Bank Hall in Burnley. Fabulaous facility and Brian and Les are really helpful.
Blacking is done, just a few twiddly bits left to do. The ice has cleared so its back into the water tomorrow. I have taken some pictures so will upload them shortly.
Well, what an eventful day! We started blacking with Comastic, had intended to use two pack but the underlying surface had not been prepped suitably for that. But then we have got a guy who can Soda blast it, bicarb rather than sand, which should get us a surface suitable for two pack. So all change and back to two pack once blasted back.
Well we set off with the canal all iced up, a good half inch or more! An interesting trip to the dry dock crashing through the ice!
We are now in the dock and being cleaned off. A small hiccup with the way it was originally blacked has led to a slight a slight change of plan but all sorted so we now sit high and dry!
