Our first cruise since... blimey, was it that long ago?

Just two days ago, I was amusing myself wandering around the marina taking photos. "Blogography" was the mindset, and there were only three photos that were worth posting.

The weekend was wet and windy again, and we were looking for a weather window which lent itself to a comfortable boating experience. On Monday, it rained hard in the late afternoon, but the sky was worth it.

And then Tuesday morning hinted at the possibility that we might enjoy the first outing on Kantara since August last year. That long! So off we went. Nothing too adventurous, just a paddle down to Welford Junction to do some repairs to various chips and scratches on the paintwork.

The marina's resident swans were out, having blurry photos taken.

The weather was good to us, and the canal was... well, it was a bit the worse for lack of use, I think. There were a few places where dredging would be appropriate, and a lot of places where reeds were intruding far too much into the width of the cut. But of course, CRT have been hit by the virus just as badly as everyone else, and simply haven't been able to get done the volume of work they normally do. We were very happy just to put up with it!

Mooring a few hundred yards away from Welford Junction, we were subjected to the worst wind I can remember; off-side and very strong, such that we found it extremely difficult to bring Kantara in to moor her. We managed eventually, but it was touch-and-go for a while, and the wind remained that way for the rest of the afternoon, so we didn't manage to make any kind of a start on the work.

But, hey. Who cares? It was so good to be out again.

There just were few others there when we arrived.

It's a truly lovely place to be.

And then the wind died, and we set about washing, scraping away flaky paint, sanding, and priming all down one side of the hull. We weren't dealing with very much that was more than just superficial, so it didn't take us too long.

Before...


...and after!


And as we worked, lots of boats passed, coming and going, mooring and leaving, and several stayed for the night. And as we sat alongside the towing path, watching paint dry and celebrating with a couple of pints, we enjoyed the sun and the simple beauty of our mooring.

The next morning, the weather forecast said we were to expect high temperatures, which would not have been best for painting, so we started early while it was still relatively cool. Sanding and top coating the hull was the order of the day. We had the whole stretch of mooring to ourselves.

The hull before the topcoat...

and after!

I took the cratch cover off  to brush away dozens of dead flies and vacated spider cocoons that had accumulated in the nooks and corners over the past months, years, and to give a good cleaning to all of the steel and woodwork that had been under the cover.

The quiet of our day was punctuated regularly by a light aircraft towing gliders to their release altitude.

And again at the end of the day, we rested and just took it all in.

And this morning, we set off, smiling, back to the marina. We have a plan!

*******

On the move!

Yesterday's beautiful weather was just right for us to get out onto the cut and do the touch-up work needed on the hull. We seem to have had far more scrapes last year than ever before, so the job's going to take a few days. While we're doing it, we'll be moving in steps towards Foxton Locks, where we'll be meeting up with the kids, and having lunch together.

Our first step was to the stretch just after bridge 27 (GU Leicester Line), and we were amazed to find that there was no-one else there, painting their boat. The bank there is quite low, which means you can paint right down to the water-line quite easily.

Approaching Bridge 27

Moored against the low bank

 

 After sanding down on the port side, we winded just beyond the next bridge...

 ...and returned to the same spot to do the same job to the other side.

And then we went back to the marina! This hadn't been our original intention, but we hadn't realised before just how dirty the hull was, and the marina was the very best choice of place for washing it.

The spring-swept countryside was absolutely glorious.

On our way back, we passed Roger and Cindy in NB Blue Belle, who had spent a few days in the berth next to us. They're on their way to Foxton, too. Roger's an artist, a painter, and they're going to be part of the floating market at Foxton over the weekend. Because they'd left the marina, we had the empty space next to us back again, so today I've been able to wash and apply rust remover to both sides of the boat by moving her from one side of the double berth to the other. Most convenient!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we'll be applying the hull paint back at bridge 27. One side, anyway. To do the other we'll move on to Welford Junction, turn around,  and moor against the low bank there. That done, we'll wind again and carry on to Foxton Locks. If the weather's good over the weekend, there'll be lots of visitors there. Here's hoping!

Nearly there!

...we hope! We went to Keighly in Yorkshire last weekend, and visited Sofabed Barn, the only people we could find on the web who make decent sofa beds for narrowboats. Tailor-make them if need be. We spent ages there, trying them out, quizzing the boss-man, and finally deciding upon the sofa for Kantara.

We'll place an order in due course. First, we have to get the boat back to Yelvertoft.

While we were in Yorkshire, we took the opportunity to spend an afternoon enjoying the delights of the moors. We didn't roam far, but the weather was good, and the scenery delightful.

On the way back, we stopped off as planned to see Kantara. Her roof was finished, the rest of her was fully primed and undercoated several times, and ready for the finishing coats.

We went back a few days later to collect the solar panels for painting. We'd taken the rear door and side hatch wooden panels back on the Tuesday, but forgot the solar panels. However, that was fortuitous because Jon Leeson was there, the guy who's doing the signwriting for us, and we were able to discuss that job with him. He was great. He gave Grace lots of advice about painting the roses and castles, and much encouragement, too.

So, back to the house with hours of cleaning, sanding, painting and varnishing. All to a deadline now, since John expects everything to be finished by the end of next week.

The stern drawers, repainted

The contents of those drawers!

The door panels, before repainting

The solar panels, finished and drying