Category: Vlog

Vlog 296: I Like To Move It, Move It

Posted on May 7, 2023February 24, 2024 by David Johns

I spend a day with Connor Warner, a professional boat mover who takes customers’ narrowboats, cruisers, Dutch barges … you name it …. around the rivers and canals of Britain.

Vlog 295: Garbage in, garbage out

Posted on April 28, 2023February 24, 2024 by David Johns

Every year, the IWA in Milton Keynes organises a massive clean-up of the local stretch of the Grand Union canal, which a team of eager volunteers undertake. The garbage they pull from the waters is quite staggering, as this video shows.

Vlog 292: Q & A

Posted on March 26, 2023February 24, 2024 by David Johns

This is a much-requested fireside chat video where I sit and chat for nearly half an hour, answering questions posed to me by viewers.

Vlog 291B: A Pirate’s Life For Me

Posted on March 16, 2023February 24, 2024 by David Johns

This is Part 2 of the day I spent with Heidi, the Narrowboat Pirate, aboard her boat “The Rum Wench”. In this video, we cruise a little way up the Llangollen Canal in north Wales, starting from the Prees branch.

Vlog 290: On my ¡Hola!-days

Posted on February 24, 2023February 24, 2024 by David Johns

I’m just back from a week’s holiday in Palma in Majorca where I thought I’d do a rare ‘real vlog’ where I wander about as a tourist, pointing the camcorder at the boats.

Vlog 286: Click and Collect

Posted on January 7, 2023February 24, 2024 by David Johns

For single-handed canal boaters, shimmying up and down lock ladders or trying to get through swing bridges can be a huge nuisance. How much easier it would be if you could steer your boat with remote control! That’s exactly what Gill Gregory can do aboard “Desiderata” so I went to see the system in action.

Vlog 285B: Jolly fun, they say

Posted on December 17, 2022February 24, 2024 by David Johns

Although normally prohibited to powered craft, with permission of the Cam Conservators in winter you can take a narrowboat onto the Cambridge “Backs” where the river Cam flows behind many of the city’s historic colleges.

Vlog 285A: To the Beyond of the Backs

Posted on December 5, 2022February 24, 2024 by David Johns

I was invited to take part in a trip that very few narrowboats are able to enjoy, along the “Cambridge Backs”. This is Part 1 of 2 of the journey.

Vlog 283: Capital Punishment?

Posted on November 15, 2022February 24, 2024 by David Johns

London’s canals and rivers are becoming ever more crowded with boaters as people flock to the capitals waterways, drawn by the lure of a seemingly idyllic and possibly cheaper lifestyle. But is the dream for real or is reality not quite as rosy? I went down to the big smoke to find out.

Vlog 282: Lord of the Flies

Posted on November 6, 2022February 24, 2024 by David Johns

Following on from the last video, about wooden narrowboats, which are quite rare on the canals, here’s another wooden narrowboat which is even rarer – a “fly boat”, the parcels service of the canal network.