[THE ULTIMATE CANAL ADVENTURE BEGINS (full tour)]-[J8Z3D0IH2Os

Across Great Britain, there's a network of canals more than 2,000 miles long. Built in the 18th century to be the nation's industrial arteries, Renaro working boats transported Britain's goods. And over the next couple of weeks, we'll be experiencing life along one of the most stunning canals in Britain, the Clangothelin. Everything I ever expected, and more. That was awesome. Where we'll be learning the skills of the waterways, navigating through locks, bridges, tunnels, and even crossing the highest canal aqueduct in the world. And our journey begins in the small English town of Ellesmere. This right here is going to be our home for the next 10 days, and it is the Alpine Swift. And we are not alone because we have the canal boating expert. The canal king. We'll call him the canal king. This is David, cruising the cut. If you don't already know who he is. You're too kind. But you call yourself the canal king. I would not call myself the canal king by any stretch of the imagination. But you lived aboard for six years. Yeah, give us your quick spiel. Okay. About eight years ago, I got very bored with a job and all that sort of stuff, so I just sold my house, bought a narrowboat, went to live aboard and was there for seven years or so. Sold it last year for personal reasons I won't go into, basically just spent those seven years chugging around the canals on the boat. But not just that. So he covers all sorts of things over on his channel, like the history of this, that, the other, the services that are done. Anyway, we've been watching David for the past five years or so, checking in and it's such a different lifestyle yet still on the water. So it's become a bit of a bucket list item for us to be able to come and live aboard a canal boat and cruise the cut, as they say. And so now here we finally are. I'm really interested to see just how that whole ocean going sailing experience translates to three knots in a channel that is this wide, twisty and turny and with a 20 ton boat. David's very concerned we're going to be bored out of our minds and I'm like, I think you forget that we're on passage sometimes for days with nothing, not even a duck. There will be lots of ducks. Yeah. See, so there's going to be so much entertainment. This is going to be lovely. Yes, David is filming a video for his channel, too, because he couldn't resist capturing a couple of Americans on their first narrowboat experience. Too many clothes for my backpack. So if you want to see what the king of canals has to say about how we did, then head over to Cruising the Cut. It's narrow, it's called a narrowboat for a reason. Excellent. Remind you of the RV days or does it feel completely different? It's like a long version of an RV and clearly we overpacked, but it's everything we own. So we don't really have a place to leave it. You can bring those small ones in if you want, David. Yeah. Oh, he's going for both. Clearly a seasoned professional here. King of the canals. We will give you a proper tour of this narrowboat and kind of explain everything a bit more. But first we need to finish checking in and orientation. We've got quite a bit of training to get to. So we're going to do that first. When we reached out to David for recommendations, he suggested Blackwater Marina because it would be the best place to start the trip and ABC Boat Hire provides everything we would need, including training. They have completely scared us. We are going to run into walls if we don't pay attention. We are going to fly inside of locks. We could fall off the front if we jump out. Oh my God. This is more exciting than I thought. Yeah, we're spinning around and we're going to go out this tiny, tiny little passage under this tiny bridge. Interesting tidbit. Our rental includes insurance that covers the trip, but it doesn't cover exiting the marina and we can see why. Are you intimidated yet? No, not yet. Of course. This is crazy. We're just getting started. So our instructor pilots us out and hands over the tiller. She's turning before it gets where it's going and bring the tiller back in a little bit to tell it to stop and come back again. So let one off to move once we want. Oh my gosh. Holy cow. My heart's racing. It's like I did not expect that. Okay, off to a good start guys. Thanks. Depth plays a lot on the boat. That's one of a kind. Oh yeah, nice now. Are you all right? Yeah. A bit reverse now. Okay. Major traffic jam. This is what we're going to be in for later. Oh man, it's not even busy season. I can only imagine. It's just so shallow without it. You don't want to comment now, do you? No comment. The wind can be awkward. The wind can push you sideways just when you don't want it. Great. This is going to be good. This is going to be stressful. Thank you. Yeah, that's it. Hold it because you want the back end to leave. Yeah. Front turn's gone, follow it. Okay. Thanks. Camera's always watching. And we're off. That's it, we're on our own. And we've been told there's a boat a ways up that may or may not be a problem. And that I've also been told that this is a very complicated spot by the seasoned professionals. I'm very glad that you took the risk. Because of all these boats on the corner. All right, David, you just yell at me if I'm doing something wrong. Oh, he's not going to help you. He's just going for the best YouTube video possible. He's waiting on you. I want the chaos. Bring on the chaos. Oh, great. I'm rooting for you. Thanks. Camera action isn't making me feel nervous at all. I was getting you, David. It's my first one. The clouds have gotten moodier. The wind has picked up. No, it's not that crazy. But it is pretty exciting to like, oh, it's a tight squeeze. Am I going to make it? You look real good here. You got more than a foot. Okay. Oh, am I going to bump back in? Oh, so close. It's so tight. I'm not bumping anything. But I thought about bumping something. That is so picturesque. But would you want to stay here because of the cows? It's nothing like a bit of cow mooing to wake you up in the mornings. This is what canals are all about. Ducks, swans and cow action. That's it. We're all tied up. I think this is going to be our little spot for the evening. We're going to make a cup of tea, have a conversation with the king of canal boat cruising. No. Then we'll set off on a proper adventure tomorrow. I'll put the kettle on. Well, we thought since we do have, you know, the king of narrowboating with us that we thought if... You're all, where is he? Don't make me laugh, I'm going to fall off. No. I'm waiting for him to go backwards. Remember, save the camera. Yeah, exactly. I'm right on the edge. You really are. It's quite unnerving. Give me that and I'm going to show everybody where you're sitting. This is Jason. Having a cup of tea. On the bow of the narrowboat. And the glorious sun. The glorious sun. Damn it. We've never chartered a boat. Funny because they don't call it chartering when it comes to this. It's a hire boat, right? So we've now hired a boat. Question is, how do we not look like the hire boat? The crucial advice and the thing they always say to you on the canals, it is all about slowing down. So slow down. A lot of people feel, I've got a week for my holiday. I must put the throttle down and get around this particular loop. And again, I'm raging. The whole point of this is to chill and relax and think about the other boaters. If you're going fast and you're going to rock them around and they're carrying a nice cup of tea, they're going to spill the tea all over themselves. So you just have consideration is the main thing. Okay. Anything else that's like a real no-no? Don't moor on the water points. You can stop on the water points to fill your tank, but a lot of people go, right, we'll nip off to the pub now. And the boat is sat and someone else comes along. They want to use the water point. Now they can't because you're in the way. Or on the lock landings or all of the places which are quite obviously set out for someone to do a specific task. Don't moor there overnight or leave the boat tied up there. That is such a perennial bugbear of all the boaters because so many people still do it. And that's probably, I would imagine, higher boaters and liveaboards alike. There's just always that person. There's always that person who, yeah, is just going to say, well, this is a nice spot and I want to go and do whatever I want to go do and leave the boat. Yeah, don't be that person. Okay. So then now the next big one. We want to look like locals. So how do we make ourselves look like liveaboarders? First of all, you're going to have to repaint the entire boat. Okay. Get rid of the APCR. Get rid of all the high logos. A roller and an afternoon and you're done. You're sorted. Then you load up some coal bags on the roof and perhaps a bicycle and some miscellaneous random bits of wood. We need stuff. You need stuff on the roof. Okay. And then people will think, ah, they're liveaboards. Yeah. A couple of potted plants. That would do. Potted plants, a little garden of herbs or herbs, as you might call them. Something like that will give the appearance of you being a liveaboard and not someone who's merely out for the week. What about, you know, you've got somebody coming by and they're going too fast or they hit your boat because you said scraping is sort of normal, but bumping is a no-no. This is not bumper cars. There is an oft-quoted saying that narrowboating is a contact sport and it absolutely categorically is not. That's not the idea and it's not acceptable because a lot of these are people's homes. And if you go crashing into someone's home, they're not going to be best pleased. So as you say, a little scrape here and there, it is inevitable. The wind can take you, you can end up. If you really want to look like canalboat dwellers, as soon as anyone comes past you at any speed, rush out the back and say, slow down! Doesn't matter how fast they go. Just rush out and slow down. Okay. Because then you'll look like a proper canalboat. Okay. Slow down! If I yell oi at them, is that like a cuss word? No, oi is perfectly fine. It's probably a sort of summoning word. Oi! Slow down! Oi! Slow down! As opposed to an oik. Oink. An oik, which is probably O-I-C-K, I would think. An oik is an unruly and unpleasant person. So you might say, oi, you oik! Slow down! I'm going to practice that one. Oik is a sound that a pig makes, mostly. Yeah, that's an oink. That's an oink. That's a difference. There's no N. Okay. Just an oik. Yeah. Okay. I like how David looked right into the camera when he said, it's not a contact sport. Yeah. Really wanted to drive that point home. There's one message across that I can possibly get. It is not a contact sport. And also, they're not barges. They're narrowboats. Do people call them barges? Yes. Because historically, the barge was the boat used to carry cargo. And nowadays, they're not barges. Okay. They're narrowboats. And I don't know why, but narrowboaters get very upset about this. So narrowboat, canal boat, that's all one and the same, right? Interchangeable, or no? Well, you see, a narrowboat is a type of canal boat. Because you can have wide beam canal boats on the wider canals. Okay. But a narrowboat is a specific type of canal boat. And it's not specific to Great Britain, is it? The narrowboat is. Okay. Built to the specific weird dimensions of Britain's canals, which were built 300 years ago. Elsewhere, they built bigger canals. Bigger, deeper, more usable canals. They built them potentially. Well, no, they did already exist elsewhere. I think so, yes. Yeah. Well, you know, when you're hand building, if it were me, I'd be like, look, we're just digging as wide and as deep as we absolutely need to. And no bigger. That's what they did. Yeah. And Nessie, Loch Ness Monster, she's not from here, right? She's not from here. Okay. That's Scotland. That is Scotland. And the locks of Scotland are not connected to the canals. So there's no crossing over. Nessie likes deep water. The canals are about four feet. If she stands up, it's all over. Frankly, if she crouches down, we can still see her. Very true. Oh my gosh. Hopefully we don't do this for 10 days and decide we're not picking up our sailboat. That would be awesome. Just that phone call. No, we don't need it anymore. Buying a narrowboat. We would, yeah. Can we get a refund, please? We are converts to steelboating. Yeah, to steelboating. Probably not, but you never know. Depends on how friendly those cows are. Walk off, completely casual. Pretend it's just you just leaving. Like it's normal. You want a cheesy, bye! Cheerio! You probably never say that, do you? I do, all the time. Do you? Yes, of course I say cheerio. Right, well, cheerio! I'll see you in a week. Such a picturesque little path. It probably seems crazy to just send him off walking, but in reality, this is a narrowboat. We're only going like three, four miles an hour, and he can, in probably 15, 20 minutes, be right back where we started. So yeah, he is walking back to his car and then we will see him again whenever we return. Probably similar to this spot right now. We'll meet again. Okay, so officially, welcome to the Alpine Swift. This is our home for the next 10 days. This boat came fully equipped. Shockingly so. I guess I don't know why I'm shocked. I've never really rented anything like this before, hired anything like this before. But it even comes with falley gear because you do have to stand outside to steer this boat. And this is England, so you might need a proper raincoat, rain pants, and an umbrella. They did not mess around. Full electrical panel. Inverter is right down here. 2,000 watts. So we really have a decent amount of power, which is why we have a microwave, an electric refrigerator. We have a nice amount of galley space just overall. A nice four-burner stovetop with an oven and a little, like, teeny, tiny, almost toaster oven size, which will really be nice because maybe I'm just heating something up and I don't want to do the whole oven. Toasted potatoes? Exactly. We'll be doing plenty of that. We've got an electric toaster. A full set of cookware, oven stuff. They really have done a very nice... Oh my gosh. Is this for eggs? It is. In case we want to. You know you are in Europe win, right? Big win, actually, was they've got double filtered water. I don't know what that means. I know there's obviously a filter here and then there must be one as it comes in. We don't have to buy bottled water and I think that's fantastic, especially for a, you know, a higher boat. Dishes, mugs, wine glasses, everything. That's the galley. Moving into the salon. We have diesel heating throughout the entire boat with, I guess, what's this, like, radiant heat? Radiant heat, yeah. Okay. We have a comfortable seating area around here. I think my favorite little feature is this pullout. This is a dining table, but for us, this will be... This is also going to be a workstation. So one of us will be here and one of us will be here. Nice big windows on both sides. They both have a view. That's pretty nice. I get to see out, you get to see out and there's something beautiful on both sides. It's really... I like it. Oh, and this whole table can be removed. So if you want it just more as, I guess, a lounge area. And you can turn it into a bed. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you can because it slats down into down here. We didn't ask how to do that because there's nobody else staying with us. Just us. TV, which I'm sure we will not watch, or radio. That... I do like listening to local radio. You can learn a lot. Huge cabinet here. Lots of storage again. We've got... This, I actually kind of like. This is our Alpine Swift here. They never settle voluntarily on the ground, spending most of their time in the air. They're able to stay aloft for up to seven months at a time, even drinking water on the wing. Fascinating. Okay. Welcome to the head. I've not explored in here much. So there we go. Oh, towel warmer. Radiant heat. Tecma toilet. That's a fancy toilet. Nice amount of like sink and storage space here. The shower is actually really nice. I don't know why I'm so surprised, but it's just from the outside. When you look at these, they seem short, right? But it's also because some of it's in the water, but they seem low and they're so narrow, but they're really quite spacious. Just everything goes lengthwise. Gosh, I look like I've been outside all day in the rain. This is my favorite part. Welcome to the cabin with its own little patio. It's so lovely. You know, it's like you get the light here and that's what you see out the front. That's what we're going to wake up to. And that's what we're going to go to sleep to. You can see the stars. Big windows in here. Really, the windows make it. During the summer, man, we're a little early in the season. So that's why it's still kind of cold. But middle of summer, you just leave those things open. The closet. It's huge. This is going to be great because we've got all of our luggage, which looks like it might fit perfectly in this space early. So I'm hoping. We'll find out later when we put it all away. I think that that's kind of it. We're going to unpack all of our stuff, get settled, and then be prepared for tomorrow's adventure. If it's at all like today. It's going to get.