Fair-weather farers

Despite the BBC weather forecasts, the weather over the past several days has been... excessive! The rain has been torrential, and the wind is blowing a hoolie. The boat's rocking and rolling - literally! Over the past week, we've had very low temperatures, lots of very strong wind, rain, fog, sleet and snow. We've been using the Bubble stove a lot during the day, replaced by a fan-heater in the bedroom just before we go to bed, and when we wake.

It took us a while to admit it when we first had Kantara eleven years ago, but we accept now that we are fair-weather farers (looked down on by a certain contingent of hardy canal folk.) The weather is most definitely incompatible with faring at the moment, so we're using the time to get various important jobs done.

An engineer from River Canal Rescue came yesterday, not to rescue us, but to service and inspect the engine. I've done the service myself once or twice before, but would far rather pay to have it done. It's not expensive (and my philosophy is that, if anything goes wrong, they're insured. I'm not!) Kantara passed the inspection with flying colours.

Lee from Days Afloat (now Lee Afloat since his boss retired and sold him the business) has been to fix a water leak in the loo, discovered that it's not fixable, and arranged a date to fit a new one. He'll change the coolant in the engine while he's here, too. (I chickened out when I realised how much bilge water is involved!  And then there's that insurance thing again.)

Colin visited us yesterday to discuss the installation of a Webasto heating system to replace our iffy Alde, which could spring a leak at any moment. It's been great, but they're known to leak when they get old. Emma Jane's (sharing our pontoon) has recently done just that, and theirs was a fair bit younger than ours.

There are jobs for us to do as well. Replacing he seal around the top of the shower tray; finishing a pair of seats Grace designed and made for the well-deck; painting and fitting the taffrail; washing, waxing and polishing the outside of the boat; touching up rusting and damaged paintwork; giving the stern deck rather more than just a touching up; varnishing the interior of the side doors... I may have missed a few! Cleaning the cratch cover was once on the list, but the past two years of our absence and consequent negligence, and the many attacks of bird poo, algae and moulds over that time, have been too much for it, so we'll be having a new one fitted later in the year.

The biggest problem with that list, however, is the weather; nearly all of the jobs are outside. The weather forecast for tomorrow is promising.

We'll believe it when we see it!

First steps

On November 4th 2020, Grace and I left Kantara expeditiously to go back to our house for the duration of the just-announced lockdown. We've returned from time to time to make sure she's okay, but we've not even slept in her since that day; until last Sunday. We're back!

This is the start of our move back onto the boat. It's only the first steps. We still need to go back to the house a few times, but it's our intention to be based here for the rest of the year. And it's so good to be here! Kantara's in need of a fair bit of TLC, and this is what we've been administering from the moment we arrived; mostly dusting and de-spidering yesterday. We're always amazed how much dust gets into the cabin when all of the windows are closed. It has to be due to the six "mushroom" ventilators down the length of the roof. And they have been subjected to a lot of wind in past months.

Our first night was a cold one. The Bubble stove wouldn't light, and we don't trust the ancient Alde gas boiler not to leak. We were snuggly warm in bed, but awoke to an internal 1 degree° C. We tried everything we could think of, including posting calls for help on several boaters' forums on Facebook. Lots of advice, but sadly no solutions yet. All I could find wrong was that the filter was very dirty, but cleaning it made no difference. This happened to us back in 2013, when a day's cruise did the job - we think it must have been the vibrations of the engine that did it. We'll try that soon!

It was lovely and warm for the next two days, and we got a lot of work done. The green algae on the roof looks awful, but was easily removed with soapy water. While I was doing that, Grace cleaned the windows inside and out, and washed the net curtains. The blinds got vacuum cleaned.

It's a start. The roof's not quite finished, the cabin sides need to be cleaned and waxed, the paintwork needs a fair bit of touching-up, and the Bubble stove needs to be professionally serviced. But we're back. We have no specific plans for cruising, except that we will cruise. We simply have ideas as to where we travel. I expect we'll play it by ear. The map is out, and so will we be!

PS I just got the stove working!

We're not going out...

We're not going out, not staying in,

Just running around with my head in a spin;
But there is no need to scream and shout;

We're not going out.
We are not going out.

I'll fess up and say that I've been tempted several times recently to suggest to Grace that we throw caution all over the place, bite the bullet (does anyone actually do that?) and go out for an extended cruise. Other people are doing it, I reason, so why not us? We've been out for a couple of short trips in the past weeks, and it's been fine. Let's do it!

And then I read the paper and see that the coronavirus is spreading again, and I change my mind. No way do I want to risk us having to lock down on the boat somewhere miles from anywhere. And anyway, if we were out cruising at the moment, we wouldn't be doing the work we started yesterday. There's no way it would be done if we were cruising.

The paint on the cratch frame had started to crack and peel in places, and the wood was in danger of getting wet, and rotting, so it was a good time to take it all down, sand the woodwork, re-paint it all - and fit a new tunnel-light while we're about it.

Kantara looks and feels very odd with the well-deck exposed!

And while the cover is off, she'll get the wash and polish she so badly needs, the poor old thing.

We still have bodywork paint to finish touching up, and will happily go out for a few days from time time to time to complete that, as we did a few weeks ago, but beyond that, we're staying put.

But now the weather's turned, and the painting job has had to be brought in to stay dry.

Once upon a time, we were simply a tad untidy, but now...

Sarah and Trevor returned yesterday, having been to Stratford-upon-Avon. They'd had a good cruise and thoroughly enjoyed it, but our illustrious Prime Minister was due to address the nation that evening, to announce new measures to reduce the spread of the virus, and they didn't want to risk being locked down in their boat somewhere out on the cut. They'd hurried back, just in case.

As it happened, Johnson didn't impose the lockdown, but hasn't ruled out the future possibility. We're glad to be here, but a bit annoyed that our efforts over the past few days have been rewarded with a downward turn in the weather. We awoke this morning to 16° in the boat. What a blessing the Bubble stove is!

*******

We're drying up!

And I'm not talking about what we do after washing up.

The weather has been interesting since we arrived back. At nights we've been rocked to sleep by the waves under the boat, stirred up by unrelenting, gusting wind, often with thrashing rain. Last night and most of today we have experienced unbelievable wind speeds. It's really quite fun in a strange way.

But these extremes have abated from time to time, leaving us with beautiful days that would be quite warm if the wind were to drop altogether. I spent an hour under such a sky as these washing the algae off the roof, dumped there by the soggy ropes that had grown the stuff over the past months. The trouble with spot-cleaning like that (though "spot" doesn't adequately convey the actual size of the green patterns that snaked down the length of the roof on both sides) is that it shows up the dirt on the areas you haven't cleaned. The job will have to be done the next time we have a dry, still day. I'm in no hurry.

Meanwhile, we find Kantara's suffering, not from the wet, but from the dry!

Who would expect that a boat, sitting on the water, in weather that frequently pours rain over us in large quantities for prolonged periods, can be too dry inside? About a year ago, we bought a combined thermometer/hygrometer to monitor the humidity inside Kantara. Too damp is obviously not good for furniture fabrics, books, and other things that shouldn't get too damp lest they get mouldy. Too dry isn't good for the woodwork, nor for people, though it's only the wood that shrinks. 60% is where you might expect mould to be thriving. Around 50% is good.

We have a dehumidifier that we leave running while we're away over the winter, and we run it overnight while we're here in the sort of weather we're getting at the moment, too. But during the day, come rain or come more rain, our Bubble stove keeps us both warm and dry. Yesterday, however, we saw that the humidity was down to 43% - far too low. (The picture above is not of our device. We wouldn't want 56% humidity, and 25° Celsius is rather too hot!) And that happened with a window open, mushroom vents in the ceiling, grilles in doors and various other gaps where the air gets in. How can that be?

The problem was simply solved by putting a pan of water on the stove.

Jobs to do, time to do them.

Because of our concern about the risk of diesel bug because of  the fuel tank being half empty (the bug thrives at the point where diesel oil meets the water it's floating on, and water arrives in the tank as condensation forming on the cold sides) - and because of an irrational need to finish fitting the stern gland greaser - and wanting to sweep the chimney so that I can be confident of it not being a problem when we next light the stove in a wintry hurry - and needing to spin the boat around simply because we didn't do it at the start of summer when we should have done (it's good practice to ensure that the sun doesn't fall predominantly on one side of a boat, so that the paint fades pretty equally over time), we came back to Kantara yesterday.

It was rather cold on board. 8°C when we arrived, but up to 23° within a few hours of  lighting the stove. Then it was a massive 16° when we awoke this morning, quickly pushed up to a more comfortable level by our trusty Alde.

The temperature was no surprise to us. What did astonish us was the plague of flies! Houseflies. Okay, the Egyptians had it worse, but we did away with two dozen or more of the things yesterday. They came out of the folds of our six Roman blinds when we lowered them in the evening. I literally sucked most of them up with the vacuum cleaner. Those that missed that treatment got swatted. Their reflexes seemed to be impaired. Why they were there and how long they'd been there we have no idea. I squashed the last two as I was going to bed, and we've seen none today. Very strange!

The wind yesterday had been rather too strong to move the boat, but the weather forecast suggested that today, Thursday, it would be better. We'd do it then, we said. So I fitted the greaser with Heath Robinson flair, forgot to clean the chimney, and then kicked myself when...

...today we filled both fuel tanks as planned, and returned to our berth, backing in to point the port side to the sun. The chimney is now on the water side and I won't be risking sweeping it, lest I fall in in the process. [Three hours after writing that, I took the risk and did the job without getting the slightest bit wet. I also remembered that I had intended to Hammerite the rusting edges of the stern hatch, and did that, too. Now I'm feeling dead chuffed!]

To round off our busyness, we found the ideal solution to the loss of 56lb of ballast from the front, right-hand (forward starboard 😁 ) side of the boat when we removed the safe from there. It was easy, really. We moved the anchor from the forward port (front left 😜 ) hold to one on the other side where we've been storing paints and varnishes. The combined 16kg weight of the anchor and the 7kg of the chain, added to the effect of taking that weight away from the port side, will give us just the trim we needed to correct the bit of a list to port we've had for a long time.

Now all we need to do is get out there and test it!

PS - It's Friday morning and I just killed another flipping fly!!

45 mph

OK, so this is nothing like the extreme winds which parts of the UK have had to endure over the past months, but it's pretty fierce for those of us living on the water. The water itself is pretty choppy, but nothing the boats couldn't handle if we wanted to move. No, it's the effect of the wind itself on our floating homes which is the main thing. Boaters invented Rock & Roll, I assure you!

The video gives you something of an idea of winds gusting in the region of 35 mph. 45 mph is predicted for later today, but there's no way I'm going to go out in that! The poor quality of this video is entirely down to me being buffeted constantly, certainly not my poor camera work. I very nearly fell off the pontoon on two occasions. If you have sound on, you'll get a better idea of the experience!

Twitter's been full of boaters' comments about their experiences. Some are not at all happy.

It's good at night, though. You get rocked to sleep very effectively!

Tomorrow, it'll be far less windy, so they say. But colder again.

Who cares about the cold, though? Our Bubble stove's running at minimum, and we have to have the doors and a window open to stop ourselves from overheating!

Ups and downs and comings and goings

On Wednesday, we had Simon working at the front of the boat, and Roy and Lee working at the back. At the same time. Simon was servicing the Bubble stove. It had been problem-free for four years, but recently started to burn dirty, sooting up the glass in the door and, of course, the chimney and inside the stove itself.

It took Simon 3½ hours to clean the build-up of carbon from nooks and corners I didn't even know existed. He actually used a hammer and chisel at times! When he'd finished, boy, was it worth it! The stove burns really efficiently now, with a dull red and blue glow just as it should be. It's fascinating and quite beautiful in the dark. And a very effective heater, to boot.

 

Roy and Lee were here to take rather more drastic measures than they had done the last time they came to fix a leaking joint in the calorifier. It had continued to leak after their last visit, so this time they replaced some oojamaflips. Unfortunately for all of us, we won't know if these oojamaflips are doing their job until the next time we run the engine to maximum temperature. Next spring, then!

There have been some new arrivals nearby in the marina. NB Hereward arrived a few days back, and surprised us by berthing in the space Achernar left last week. We're expecting them to be back in the coming week. Perhaps they've changed their minds, and are mooring somewhere else now. And just this afternoon, NB Wreyland arrived and moored in Smudge's space. Bang goes our view from the starboard windows! But David, the new owner of Wreyland, is only staying for four days, so there will be no problem with Smudge returning.

I got an email today, informing me of the removal of this blog's entry on the UKWRS website. Apparently, it had been drawn to their attention - probably by someone whose blog had been overtaken by this one on the ranking table - that my blog isn't waterwaysey enough! It has to be "UK Waterways related". What, all of it? Always? No, they say, just most of it. I looked at the blogs of some of those who occupied the same sort of area as mine on the table. Hmmmm. Never mind. If that's the rules, it's not a big deal. I had no idea anyone took their readership ranking so seriously! I've removed the little logo which used to reside at the top of the navbar here, and now NB Kantara's place will fall lower and lower until it disappears altogether up its own absurdity!

Down four places already!

Have you seen the weather forecast?

I was greeted this morning by bright sun and blue sky, and not a hint of any wind. Totally beautiful. Then I made the mistake of looking at Twitter.

Darn! But at least we'll have done the touching-up-the-paintwork jobs before it sets in. And Grace will still be able to do the interior Roses and Castles. She's still not ready to do them on the cabin sides. Yesterday, we took Kantara out and moored her just opposite the marina, where we painted over the scuffs one side of the hull; the panel below the gunnel. It's a quick-drying deck paint which John Barnard applied back in May, and really easy to paint over, leaving a good-looking finish. We'll go out and do the other side this afternoon.

After taking Michael and Jane out this time last week, we found that the pipe joint on the calorifier was still leaking, despite Roy's work on it not long ago. He'll be back next week to investigate. On the same day, Simon will be servicing the Bubble stove. It's likely it's never been serviced before, and it's started to burn dirty and less efficiently, so we're looking forward to having that put right. We've not been using it for a week or so now, even though we'd love to. We're using the Alde instead, which is fine; it heats the boat much more quickly than the Bubble, certainly. But the Bubble is favourite. More cost-effective, and having a lovely blue-red glow in the evenings, which adds to the cosiness of the saloon.

The autumn skies in late afternoon have been amazing lately. Especially when there's rain around!

And when there was rain around on Tuesday, we went to Cineworld to see "Miss you already". I have to confess I wasn't expecting much of the film, even though the trailer made it look good. Trailers sometimes have a way of showing you the only bits worth watching, don't they? But I was wrong. It was brilliant, combining pathos with humour, held together by a strong story and tremendous acting and direction.

"Milly and Jess have been best friends since childhood. Growing up, they did everything together and could never imagine life without one another. On the surface, Milly and Jess couldn’t be more different: Milly is a forward-thinking career woman who has landed her dream job, she has a wonderful loving husband and two fantastic kids. Jess, on the other hand, resides in a boathouse and spends her days working in a community garden.

While Jess loves being an ‘auntie’ to Milly’s two gorgeous kids, she longs for the day that she and her boyfriend, Jago, will have a family of their own. But when Milly receives the distressing news that she has breast cancer, life takes an unexpected turn and Milly needs Jess more than ever."

And we've watched DVDs of a few more films recently, too. (The only TV we've watched has been Downton Abbey. Couldn't miss that!)

Son of Rambow stars Bill Milner, who played brilliantly in Is anybody there? which we've also seen lately. Rambow is very funny, with moments of pathos. A great film.

"In 1980s England, schoolboys Will Proudfoot and Lee Carter meet by chance in a hallway. Though the boys are polar opposites, Lee asks Will to help him make a homemade action movie, inspired by Sylvester Stallone's hit, "Rambo: First Blood." Will, who lives in a strict religious environment, is only too happy to oblige his new friend."

Is anybody there? is poignant, with comic moments. Another really good film.

"Set in 1980s seaside England, this is the story of Edward, an unusual ten year old boy growing up in an old people's home run by his parents. Whilst his mother struggles to keep the family business afloat, and his father copes with the onset of mid-life crisis, Edward is busy tape-recording the elderly residents to try and discover what happens when they die. Increasingly obsessed with ghosts and the afterlife, Edward's is a rather lonely existence until he meets Clarence, the latest recruit to the home, a retired magician with a liberating streak of anarchy.

Is Anybody There? tells the story of this odd couple - a boy and an old man - facing life together, with Edward learning to live in the moment and Clarence coming to terms with the past."

Gotta stop now! Lunch-time. Then painting!

Nothing new really

Early in our time on Kantara, I wrote a rather idealistic post about the weather, basically saying, if I remember rightly, that it's just one of those things that boaters have to put up with, and we just smile and get on with life regardless. How naïve that was!

The fact is that, though there are stalwarts out there who cruise the UK's inland waterways throughout the year, come rain or shine, hail or snow, Grace and I are not that hardy (or is it foolhardy?), and we feel very much at the mercy of the weather. While chugging along the canal in a strong wind may not be too bad because of the trees and hedgerows along most of the banks, we still have to get out of the marina! 

At the moment, we need warm, dry weather. Without it, we can't paint the hull and we can't have our cratch cover repaired. Well, we could but for the fact that we have developing plants on the foredeck at the moment, and don't want to run the risk of adverse weather damaging them - it may well have been frosty last night, for a start.

In fairness to us, we could be cruising. The weather's not that bad, and we've certainly been boating in weather far worse than this in past years. But it's just not convenient to be on the cut at the moment, since we want to attend the Crick Boat Show next weekend (and already, nearby moorings are closed to casual would-be users), and I have to have the car serviced and MOTed next week. We're banking on better weather the week after the Show, that the painting and cratch cover may be done then.

Meanwhile...

We still feel the need to have the bubble stove on for a few hours each day.

The weather forecast is hopelessly wrong, promising good weather when we have bad, and bad weather when we have good. Yesterday there was a strong wind for most of the day.

Using a couple of the free cinema tickets we get in exchange for Tesco Club Card vouchers, Grace and I saw "The Great Gatsby" the other day. Grace enjoyed it more than me. I found it rather tedious, and light on content, and I couldn't help wondering why Peter Parker was in it. Tobey Maguire really can't be anyone else, it would seem.

A Midwestern war veteran finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his millionaire neighbour.

Oh, and I finally got around to taking the two gas canisters out of the bow locker, and removing the piece of old carpet on which they had been standing. As I had suspected, the carpet was not damp, and the painted floor underneath only had mild surface rust. Nevertheless, I replaced the carpet with plastic tiles which stand on feet, away from the floor, and which have lots of drainage holes across their area, and won't need to be concerned about the possibility of rust developing in future.