Check the tides

We've spent a few days messing about on rivers, a couple of days on a pretty river mooring in a quiet, remote spot, and a day with a very good friend.

I like rivers. They are my favourite part of the waterways network: never boring, never direct. Today's destination was due East of today's starting point, but we still spent an hour travelling due West and 45 minutes heading South. We saw otters, a mink, loads of countryside and (briefly) some mobile phone signal. We ignored that last bit and pretended it didn't happen.

And we arrived back at Selby lock just in time to catch the tide to York - but decided not to take it because we had our guest on board, everyone's cars were in the wrong places, and we needed a few hours to take on water & provisions.

It turns out that this was not our wisest decision. It leaves us with just one opportunity to head upriver to York in the next three days, because the tides either will be too early, after dark or too high.

So we will set off tomorrow evening, two hours and fifteen minutes before dark, on a two hour journey up a tidal river with no moorings.

If we get it wrong, then at some time on Saturday morning I will be posting the next entry as we whip past the Port of Hull on our way to the bottom of the North Sea.