Water, water everywhere!

It's been another learning curve today! We decided it was time we changed the water filter as they normally need changing every year and it has been almost exactly a year since we first moved onto the boat full time.

Our builder told us that there is no urgency if we are not drinking the water and I refuse to drink it because it has a strange 'tang' to it and being a discerning tea drinker I don't like it. We fill a 5 litre bottle from the tap on the jetty every day - spoilt I know, but we all have our little quirks and I do like my cup of tea to taste proper!

However, I still brush my teeth using the water from the tank, so it is still very important to me that it is hygenic!

Our filter is under the bed, so we pulled the mattress off, (quite a mean feat in itself given the limited space) and took some of the stuff we had stored out from under the bed. P blames me for what happened next! He just touched the filter and suddenly all hell broke loose. I heard the water pump kick into action plus the sound of water spurting under pressure. P pushed past me screaming 'open a tap up'! so I rushed into the bathroom and turned on the tap, by which time P had turned off the pump at the control centre.

It turns out the filter had fractured (probably as a result of me throwing something heavy into the storage space). So until we had managed to go and buy another filter we were without water. Basically without the filter in situ the pump thinks a tap is on so it starts pumping. Unfortunately this happened in the space under our bed leaving a damp pool which we had to clear up. We managed to get to the chandlery which had a pump the size we needed and P spent the afternoon fitting it and trying to stop it from leaking. Finally after a few false starts the water flowed freely without leaking and our water supply suddenly seemed to flow a lot more freely than it had for a long time. We think that the filter had needed changing for a long time and was actually clogging up the system. All we need to do now for a totally pure system is put a couple of disinfecting tablets in the tank which we will do next week.

Water is a bit of a problem at this time of year. All boats have a problem with condensation, especially in cupboards which are near to outside walls. We wake up every morning and have to wipe the windows down with a towel. We hope to get some double glazing done next year, which will solve the problem, but this is low down on our list of priorities, after solar panels and a state of the art generator. The worst problem is in the wardrobes in the bedroom and we get around it by putting silicon crystals in them which soak up the moisture. There also needs to be a lot of air circulation but unfortunately my clothes are jam packed into the wardrobes which P is always complaining about. I really do need to reduce the amount of clothing I own!!

I think it would be useful if I write down the sites of where we get our 'stuff' from for potential boaters, (for example the silicon crystals) and I will try and make this a feature of future blogs.

Have been really busy recently, but hope to post more blogs in the near future - please continue to 'watch this space'!

Al :)