While the journey along Union Canal can often be a tranquil one, one boat's crew found themselves in a spot of bother when their vessel got stuck under a bridge.
Software Engineer Ken Murray decided to cycle back from work down the canal when he saw people gathering by a boat that was sitting under a bridge near Kingsknowe, Edinburgh.
On Thursday February 16, he was on his way back from Heriot-Watt Riccarton campus to Shandon in the Gorgie area when he spotted the boat and thought they were trying to park it. However, in scenes reminiscent the infamous Ever Given and Suez Canal debacle, Ken realised it was indeed jammed.
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Speaking to Edinburgh Live, the 61-year-old said: "I was cycling home from walk on Thursday at around 5pm, and I thought I'd go the quiet way for a change, along the union canal path. I saw a bunch of about eight folk standing about.
"From a distance, it looked like they were trying to park it, someone had some rope over it and were trying to pull the back end of it towards the towpath. Though I thought that was a funny place to park a boat!
"But when I got closer, I could see the engine was revving really hard to try and reverse and pull it back out. They must have been trying to shuggle the boat a bit to free it. When I spoke to them, they said, 'oh no, it really is stuck'. The boat was too wide to get through that bridge."
In an image shared by Ken, you can see how the canal narrows slightly after the bridge where the corner of the footpath goes in.
He continued: "Most of the folk who were helping were just people walking past, just lending a hand to try and pull it free. There were two men on the boat, and one said that it was just four hours old. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I reckon they had put it in the water a few hours ago and was hoping to park it further down the canal.
"Somebody's going be very unhappy about this. I thought they were going to have a right job getting it out of there!'
The Union Canal opened back in 1822 and runs from Falkirk to Edinburgh. It was opened during the industrial revolution in 1822 is a canal to bring minerals like coal to the city.
However after the railways opened in 1842, is slowly fell into decline and closed to commercial work in 1933, and officially closed in 1965 until 2001 when it was reconnected to the Forth and Clyde Canal in 2002. It can now be used by the public for leisure.
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