The water is only 3m deep here so I lowered the anchor into the mud and put some slack in the chain. If we are cast adrift again the boat won't go far. The only thing is that I will have to wind it back up before leaving, I better have some Weetabix that day. This was the first time that we had ever lowered the anchor from Waterdog since picking it up in dry dock in 2011.

Asleep at 00:30 we heard and felt a hard crash & thump on the boat, I dressed and went on deck to see the barge that we had tied up in front of, drifting by on our port side. No wait, we were port side to on the pontoon when we went to sleep, what I was seeing was that we were adrift and going backwards at 4kph past the boat that was behind us! The mooring lines were all hanging in the water so, as Lorna appeared on deck, confused, I grabbed the aft line and threw the loop over the bollard of the barge that was 6ft off the port side, walking forward as we drifted aft. Then took some turns on a forward bollard of ours and stopped Waterdog drifting astern. WOW, we had been cast off by some stupid b&^%rd on a fast river with a weir and shallow water downstream of us! We were taking our Swiss cruiser with us as well. With the boat stopped we got dressed, got all the lines on board, woke the neighbours, started the engine and took the pair of boats back to our spot on the pontoon and tied up. This time we put our ropes through the small cleats and made them up on board so they couldn't be taken off unless someone came on board. Then we got a 8mm anchor chain out and secured Waterdog to a pontoon cleat and tied that off with a padlock. WOW again, so a cup of tea and a discussion followed and by 02:00 we were back trying to relax in bed. This had been hard to believe!

We subsequently found out from the captain of the port that this was the first time that this had happened here and also that a local theatre barge had one of its lines cast off at the same time. Maybe we were simply the easiest lines to let free since we had only just arrived and had not made them sufficiently difficult enough to cast off. We reported this to the ploice as well but expect that they will not do anything about it. It feels like a very personal attack when it is your home cast adrift while sleeping and oblivious, horrible.