Work continued today at Stantons Bridge and mainly concentrated on clearing the way through the bridge arch. It was a very time consuming operation in that the mud hopper could not sit along side the dredger, so each bucket full of mud had to be shunted back and unloaded in the wider section above the bridge.
The image below shows some supplemental dredging where the mud barge was moored in order to ease the passage of the dredger along side.
In all, we probably achieved about 10 bucket loads per hour! By the end of the day, at least the bridge section had been cleared, so now progress towards Bowbridge Lock to widen to full width can take place. The mud hopper was resting on the canal bed, so that's in need of emptying.
A resident robin inspected the dredgings each time, just in case an easy meal was to be had.
