It's Raining It's Pouring

The weather has become unsettled again and we have struggled to get any painting done over the last two days.

Today we have had heavy rain and the wind is howling around the boat. It sounds worse up here at the sea basin because it whines through the rigging of the yachts.

If it continues to be wild tomorrow we are going to sand down the paintwork on the bow deck which is under cover and repaint it.

This is where our water tank is and we have discussed what maintenance work we need to do on this. The normal procedure for a tank like ours is to open up the small entry hatch and try to scrape round the sides and bottom with a brush on some kind of pole or extension. The opening to ours is 2ft by 2ft and in theory it is possible for a small person to get inside and clean it out at close quarters. This is a horrible job though and neither of us fancies doing it.

We know there is a lot of sludge slopping around the bottom because we ran out of water last week. We hadn't expected to be on dry land for so long, but the weather has been against us. Consequently we ran out of water before being able to get to a convenient tap. The water that came out of the taps was clearly coming from the bottom of the tank as it was brown! As it happens we only use the tank water for showering and washing up. We fill up a litre container every day for our drinking water even though we do have a filter which we change every year.

Once the tank has been cleaned it needs repainting, unless it is made of stainless steel, which ours isn't. We really don't want to be doing all of this, so we have researched putting a plastic liner in.

After all the work we have done this summer, we won't be able to afford this until next year now, so our tank will have to wait another year. This won't be an issue, provided we keep it topped up and regularly put sterilisation tablets in, which we do every couple of months.

I will keep you posted about costs and details as we research it more thoroughly.

The village show was held yesterday and I won prizes for my broad and runner beans from the allotment and also I got many prizes and a trophy for my photos. Here are three of the prize winning photos:

Once the boat painting is completed, I will post some pictures of the finished product. We hope to be back in the water by the end of next week.

Al

Some good weather at last

Finally over the last two days we have had some warm, dry weather which has enabled us to crack on with the painting and sign writing.

Our new sign writer is very skilled and has put right many faults with our original lettering and it is starting to look really fantastic. Photos will be posted when it is finished.

We have painted the stern and all we have to do now is the Gunnels and the rubbing strip, which has quite a few scuffs.

Tomorrow is the village show and I have some photos in and have also entered quite a few vegetable classes, so I will be down at the allotment at the crack of dawn tomorrow choosing and harvesting my best specimens.

I'll let you know how I get on!

Al :)

Boat Maintenance

It is now 4 years since we moved to the boat and we have never for an instant regretted the decision to change our lifestyle so radically. Neither of us are getting any younger and the lifestyle is very physical and strenuous, so we are aware that at some point we will have to go back to dry land, but for now we are enjoying 'living the dream'.

Usually boats need some attention after about 3 years, so at 4 years we knew that the boat was long overdue for blacking. Some of the scuffs on the paintwork also required touching up. We booked the crane at our local yachting basin for the lift out and sailed through the six locks to get there. One of the new boaters who has recently moved to our marina came with us to learn how to operate the locks and it was good to have an extra pair of hands.

Here are some pictures from our trip:

When the boat was lifted out of the water it was quite shocking to see the state of the hull. She was covered in fresh water Mussels, all the black had come off and there was a fair bit of rust in evidence.

Luckily the weather was good, so we were able to get the bottom blacked straight away the next day:

Looking better already, but unfortunately the weather has now broken, with the tail end of hurricane Bertha causing some disruption to our work plans. As you can see from the picture, we have some scuffing on the paintwork to cover, but frustratingly all we can do for now is look out of the window at the wind and rain and hope that we can get going again soon.

More on our progress soon. I will try to post every day now. In the next blog there will be news on what we have decided to do with our water tank and some adjustments we are planning to make to access our gas locker.

Al :)

Long time no blog!

Finally I am home from working overseas and have had some time to recover from my exhausting work schedule.

I will now be posting regularly again for a while until my next work session, which isn't until October when I have been booked to go to India.

Lots has happened with the boat since I returned to the UK and I will be posting progress with that and some pictures over the next few days.

At the moment we are in the boat yard near the sea basin with the boat on dry land for blacking and painting, but the internet signal is terrible here, so I probably won't be able to blog too extensively while we are here.

I will try over the next few days to write some details about the mechanics of getting the boat out of the water and the work we have done etc. so please bear with me....

More soon ......

Al 

A quick update

I arrived back in the UK two weeks ago, but have been busy preparing to go away for another four weeks work in the next few days, so have not been able to post.



Here is a brief update before I disappear overseas again.



It was wonderful to get back after weeks away and see the English countryside again and all the blossom on the trees. Much as I love visiting new countries, I do miss the scenery around where we live. One of the first things we did, once I had got over the jet lag was to have a walk in one of our favourite spots in the Trough of  Bowland:

The Bluebells were still out. I was afraid that I had missed them:

There are a number of ducklings on the canal and our local pair of swans have had cygnets:

When I get back from my next work stint, we are sailing the boat up to the sea basin to have her lifted out of the water for essential maintenance work. We have been given a quote for the work, which is somewhat high, so we are now considering doing it ourselves, although we will still have to pay for the crane to lift her out onto dry land.

We are negotiating a price at the moment, but watch this space in July when work commences to black the bottom and touch up the paintwork and the sign writing. We also have some decisions to make about our water tank. We wish we had had a stainless steel tank fitted as part of the original spec. but they are expensive, so we are now considering putting a lining in. This would save us from having to climb in, treat the surface and repaint the inside, which is a horrible job.

Next post will be mid July ......

Al :) 

Spring is here at last!

The weather has been sunny over the last few days and although it is still chilly in the mornings, there is some warmth in the sun as the day draws on.

There are lots of lambs in the fields, which is a clear sign of spring:

I am busy preparing to go overseas tomorrow, for four weeks work, but I did manage to get out for a walk along the towpath the other day. I shall miss the lovely scenery around where I live:

I stopped to talk to some hire boaters who are thinking of buying a boat to live on. We talked for a long time about the pros and cons. They seemed to think that this type of change of lifestyle is becoming more common, but I do think that quite a few people who embark on it, give it up quite quickly when they realise that it is not quite as they imagined. When we were considering it, we were told that only 1 in 100 actually do it and stick at it. Well after 4 years and still loving it, I think we count as one of those 1 in a 100!

This morning we took the opportunity of a lovely day, for me to have a last walk for a while in the English countryside. We disturbed some hares in the field behind the tow path.



















As we walked along the tow path, our local heron was doing a bit of fishing and was not up for moving as we approached him. He is used to people and very tame!

We saw lots of other birds, including many Wrens and this Black Cap, a spring visitor:

Yesterday evening I sat on the roof of the boat, in the evening sunshine with a beer, listening to the birds and watching the world go by and I couldn't have been happier, or more sure that we made the right decision to move to the boat four years ago. It ticks every box for us.

I am looking forward to flying to the Far East tomorrow, but will not be posting until I get back. Once I have completed this spring work stint, we will be taking the boat out of the water for essential repair and maintenance work and that should make for some interesting reading, so please bear with me and I will post again in June.

Al :)

Time flies

I can’t believe that it is nearly a month since I last blogged. The time has gone so quickly. This may be something to do with the fact that I have been very busy. We moved to the boat with a view to winding down, but the opposite seems to have happened.

When we lived in a house and our boys were still at school, I remember being anxious at the start of every academic year, worrying that I would not get enough work to pay the mortgage. Being self-employed, there are no guarantees of work and it is a constant worry to make ends meet. Phil used to always say that I never had a shortage of work, but I always had nagging doubts. I also always ‘played safe’, turning down risky stuff in favour of the regular work which paid the bills. Moving to the boat took the pressure off and enabled me to relax, as we don’t need so much money to live on. Surprisingly I am now busier than ever. I think there are two reasons for this, the first is that I am able to gamble and take on work which is not regular, but pays better and I am so relaxed that I actually do a better job because I am not constantly worried or stressed. I can also be true to myself and say what I think without fear of reprisals or of losing work.

Of course, I talk about being self- employed as being different to employment. In the old days it was considered to be especially insecure and extremely hard work. This was because you had to go the extra mile to secure the work and get a good reputation, working often unsocial and very long hours, usually without breaks, which would not be tolerated by workers with a strong union. Nowadays though, employees also have a very hard and insecure working life with zero hours contracts and the strength of the unions now diluted so much, that employers totally have the upper hand. I’ll not say any more, otherwise I might just get on my soap box, but our society in this country seems to be getting harsher and less compassionate. I will be interested to see what happens at the next general election.

Boaters also seem to be a target at the moment. We personally have had huge problems recently with a number of organisations.  I won't go into details, but we have had to fight our corner to get any kind of decent service and it seems to be because we live on a boat, that we are treated with a complete lack of respect or consideration. It frustrates me no end.

Having said that, the advantages of our life style far outweigh these small irritations. Phil and I go to our local nature reserve regularly and do some bird and wild life watching. I have realised recently that actually we have our own nature reserve on our doorstep. We have seen the Otter in the past few days, in fact, cheekily, it launched itself out of the water into the space under the jetty while we were chatting to our neighbour the other evening in full view of all of us. We have now positioned our camera there in the hope of capturing it again, but of course it hasn’t been back since! Now that the weather is getting warmer, we have decided to clear out our bow deck and put two chairs in there with binoculars and a camera permanently to hand and we are committed to spending an hour each evening in there, (with a glass of wine!). I will keep you posted on what we see.

I have been trying to upload some pictures here of what our night vision camera has captured recently, but am having some difficulty. I am currently going through all the suggestions from 'Google help' to rectify the problem so hopefully I will be able to resolve it soon.

I am due to fly to the Far East again next Sunday for four weeks of work, but will try and post when I get back.

I am back for two weeks, but have a big concert to prepare for before I go off again to Cyprus working for four weeks before I can have a good break in the summer. The concert is a ‘biggie’, the singer who I am playing for is well known and the music challenging, so I am just a little nervous, but I love playing for singers, the music she has chosen is sensational and she is amazing, so I hope I can enjoy the playing and support her properly without getting too nervous!

When I get back from Cyprus we have to arrange to have the boat taken out of the water and the bottom cleaned and blacked. We also want to touch up the paint work and do some work on the water tank. We have a decision to make there, in that we would like to just put a lining in, which is an easy solution to keeping it clean and manageable, but it is very expensive. The other solution is to physically get in the tank, scrape it clean, treat it, paint it and flush it out before refilling it, which is a horrible job. I will keep you posted on what we decide and how we go about it.

We are off today to the Lake District for a two day break and some walking, before I fly off to foreign parts. I love travelling and I feel privileged to experience other cultures, but I miss the hills and the unique English landscape and yes, even the weather!

I’ll try and post again before I go.

Al J