hi all. At first i called this " Taking Stock " then had second thoughts, he's a great guy. This crossing raised an awkward problem for me !. My poles have baskets and on one particular ford the water was too fast to ground them . I would not have chanced it except that Frederic was there . The central race was approx. 0.6 metre and my pole bounced off the surface. I placed it by stabbing upstream to hit bottom near me. The fourth ford stopped us outright and still too high, having camped overnight.