Tsk! Boats, huh?

Well, boat life's just been made a little more challenging. Yesterday lunchtime, we prepared our first meal without a galley sink, and did the washing up in the shower! A few days ago, I noticed that water was getting into the cupboard under the sink, and traced the fault to the sealant between the sink and the draining board. It looked to me as if the front right corner of the sink had dropped a few millimetres, and the sealant had consequently pulled away along the right side. Water running off the draining board over edge of the sink naturally runs along the bottom edge of the board before meeting the inside of the sink, and it's there that the seal is broken and the water gets underneath.

I contacted Roy straight away, but he was unable to come until yesterday morning. He and Lee found that the oak draining board had warped a little. It, and the sink itself, all needed to be screwed more tightly, but first the wet panels have to dry out, and this will take some days. Consequently, we have no sink! Interesting!

Two or three days ago, I needed to run the Alde boiler. It wouldn't fire up. I called Carl, who'd been responsible for moving gas pipes when Kantara had her new galley fitted, and he came on Wednesday to see what the problem was. There were flakes of rust which had fallen onto the burner unit. He cleaned it up, and the area all around it, but it still wouldn't ignite. He changed the thermocouple, which he had suspected to be the culprit in the first place. Still no ignition. So he had to remove the heart of the Alde, to send it off for repair by a qualified engineer.

A thermocouple - fascinating, huh?

Carl and Roy will both need to come back next week to complete their jobs, but we intend to have left Kantara by then. The office keeps copies of our keys, and will sign them out to known individuals, so there's no problem there. What will happen now is that we'll go back to the house on Friday, return here when the men have finished their jobs, winterise the boat and then leave her for the winter.

The dehumidifier was delivered yesterday, and we set it up straight away and switched it on. Let's hope it lives up to our expectations. We had it on for several hours before going out yesterday afternoon, then all night. It's still on now, and has done a remarkable job of preventing the condensation on the window-frames which normally forms very easily in weather like this.

We'll come back to Kantara every couple of weeks over the winter this year, to check that all is well with this device running all the time. It'll cost us a fair bit for the electricity, but not as much as it costs those who leave their boats to keep warm with their in-built diesel-fuelled heaters, and our solution has the air-drying advantage over heaters, too.

Preparing for winter

Winterizing's pretty much essential for us, since Kantara's going to be without us for a couple of months. And the job's simple enough, and doesn't take much time. However, despite our best efforts, we've had patches of mould appear over the past three winters - on blinds and in cupboards mainly - and we'd really like to avoid that this year. OK, so taking the blinds down and taking them back to the house is no big deal, but there's something very wrong in the feeling that the boat's going to be allowed to get as cold and damp as the air outside - leaving windows open is recommended, in order to maintain an air flow.

What many people do is have their built-in heating systems switch on automatically when the temperature falls below, say, 5 degrees Celsius. The systems are diesel-fuelled, and it's not an expensive solution. We don't have such a system. Our only option would be to have a thermostatic device plugged into a mains socket, and a bar heater or similar plugged into that.

But we've worked out that this could be very expensive over the period of two very cold months, and we reckon, too, that such low heat would do nothing to keep the air dry. And mould might well grow better in the slightly warmer, damp atmosphere. Not a solution.

However, I read what seems to be a really good idea in an online forum this morning. A dehumidifier. This can be set to reduce the humidity in the boat by set amounts (which is far smaller than the house which these devices are said to be able to deal with), and go to standby when the set level is achieved. It checks 30 minutes later to see if it's needed again. If it is, it reactivates, if not, it goes back to sleep. Obviously, we don't have the windows open when this is working.

The given energy consumption makes it far cheaper to run, and would pay for itself within a year; there are many times it could be used, even when we're on board - wash-day is the prime one.

The device we've just ordered is able to send its collected water through a hose into the sink - surprisingly, most of them don't have that feature - so we don't have to empty a tank two or three times a day! It's been highly commended by other boaters, and by Sailing Magazine, who voted it "Best Buy".

We'll be able to test it before we leave it alone to get on with the job. Fingers crossed!

After using the kettlebell Grace bought the other week, she decided that it's fine for some exercises, but too heavy - at least at the moment - for others, so we returned to the warehouse shop yesterday to but two more, one at 4kg and one at 6. If Grace doesn't get stronger and fitter now, there's something very wrong!