Life Afloat

“In one long moment in August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs, preferably blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers”.

That’s the challenge set by the Blogday website. So here goes, five boating blogs that I found today and would like to share with you, all of which happen to be from the US or Canada.

Big Bad Boat Blog is the blog of a couple who live on a boat in Seattle. It’s worth a look for the pictures of Lake Union on July 4th, a spectacle I heard a lot about when I visited earlier this year and regret not seeing for myself.

The Wooden Boat Blog is home to several boat builders’ blogs and may appeal to those of you of a much more practical nature than myself.

Waterborne is the blog of a couple who live on a boat on Vancouver Island. The lighted boats parade looks fun.

Sailaway makes good use of photos and blogging to tell the story of an eleven month trip from Toronto to the Bahamas, Cuba and back.

Finally, visit this site purely for the photo of the homemade houseboat. Inspirational and funny.

This week at work I’ve been following a slightly geeky email discussion about the merits of using old technology and whether it was built to last longer. This was definitely borne out by my recent experience.

I’d been talking to my Dad about my boat’s bilge water problems. Water had been steadily dripping from a leak in the propshaft and had also come in through the weedhatch cover on the aft deck. It was now several inches high. Because of the way the bilge is partitioned, the electric bilge pump is only partially effective at removing the water ingress and the plastic manual pump I bought was difficult to hold in position, took Herculean strength to use and broke after a couple of uses.

My Dad took a look in his workshop and found a second world war stirrup pimp. They were mass produced and this one might have been carried, along with a bucket, by an air-raid warden to put out fires. I took a hacksaw and cut off the round foot of the pump so it could reach right to the bottom of the bilge, connected it to a length of hosepipe fed through the cabin window and pumped the handle for half an hour. The rate at which it expelled water was impressive and the bilge is now drier than it’s been for ages thanks to some old-fashioned solid engineering.

I felt a bit guilty about the patch of oily water that was expelled from one section of the bilge into the Thames so I threw a few streams of fairy liquid onto it which dispersed the oil almost immediately.

I live alone on my boat and I mostly travel alone. That brings with it particular difficulties and other boaters, passers-by and lock keepers often offer me help when they realise I’m going solo. Many times I politely decline, particularly in locks and particularly if they are non-boaters, because sometimes their assistance is more hassle than it’s worth and if they don’t follow instructions, their actions can even be dangerous.

If I’m mooring in a shallow area or the wind’s blowing the boat away from the towpath then I often shout out to a passerby to ask them to help haul me in. I throw the rope beside, never at them and ask them not to pull hard but to gently lean back and haul me in slowly.

I don’t ask non-boaters to push the bow out when I cast off because some daredevils lean way too far over and I don’t want them falling in.

I’m most appreciative of help when I’m stuck in shallows and another boater is around with a boat pole to push me away from the bank while I rev the engine.

Helpful lock keepers (and so far I’ve only met helpful ones) are always welcome and they know what they’re doing. If they tell me to do something then I don’t question it. I’ve found that when going solo through locks on the Thames, the following routine works well for me:

1.
While waiting for the lock to open I tie the boat up to a bollard using the midline and keep an eye on it. Many boats leave the lock faster than they ought to and their wash can cause my boat to rock and drift. While waiting, I get the stern and bow ropes ready for use.

2.
I bring the boat into the lock as slowly as possible, remembering that putting her in reverse when next to the lock wall can cause the stern to move out.

3.
The engine has to be shut off while in the lock and I do that before I step out of the cabin.

4.
I walk round the gunwhale to the middle of the boat and, if I’m still a few feet away from the edge, throw the midline over a bollard and haul the boat to the side before stepping off.

5.
Temporarily I keep the midline tied loosely around the bollard while I walk to the front and rear of the boat and put the bow and stern ropes around bollards (not looping or tying them, that could cause an accident as the water level changed) . I then untie the midline, hold the ends of the bow and stern ropes and step onto the roof of the boat.

6.
Now, as the lock keeper operates the sluices and the water level rises or falls, while stood on top of the boat I can pull lightly on either rope to keep from drifting into the boat next to mine.

7.
Once the gate opens I coil up the (first bow, then stern) ropes, push the front of the boat away from the side of the lock, step back in the cabin, start the engine and move out slowly.

8.
I wave and say thanks to the lock keeper.

Recently I had a close call. One evening when the lock keeper was off-duty (they knock off at 7pm) I went through a lock on my own and as the water level rose a rope caught fast on a bollard. The boat tipped over to an angle I never want to see her at again but I stayed calm and emptied the lock as fast as I could. Half the cupboards had emptied of their contents but no other damage was done.

Thanks to Simon Robinson (on a boat called Bristol) for sending me this photo of Bristol Fashion. At the time I was driving round looking for somewhere to moor in crowded Windsor. I’d just got stuck in the shallows on the opposite bank and had to ask another boater to give me a push off with a barge pole.

Bristol was built in 1935 for GUCCCo., bought by Willow Wren and renamed Dipper, bought by Black Prince and converted to a hire boat while its name reverted to Bristol. Wonderful what you can find out if you google people, especially if they’re listed on the Internet Boaters database! Simon lists his special interests as “getting un-stuck mostly”. I know how he feels.

On the canals, if you choose to continuously cruise, you can stay almost anywhere for free for up to two weeks at a time. On the Thames it’s very different.

There are occasional free public mooring places but they are for 24 hour stays only and are few and far between. Almost everywhere charges a mooring fee. In Windsor, where I’m currently moored, it’s four pounds a night. On one side of the river the leisure centre takes payment, on the other side Eton College takes your money. In Maidenhead it’s eight pounds a night and the local council collects it. And that’s just to stay there, don’t expect electricity, mooring rings or even a straight bit of towpath to moor against. Is Maidenhead really worth twice as much as Windsor? Since Windsor is so crowded with boats and it’s hard to find a mooring there, shouldn’t it be the other way round?

I put the boat in Reading’s Better Boating marina recently so it would be safe while I went to the Big Green Gathering festival. It cost about ten quid a night and that didn’t even include an electrical hookup. Nice location on an island though with the added charm of having to take a rowing boat out to reach the boat.

Money is the main reason I’m going to have to leave the Thames and return to the canals soon. The Thames has been a fantastic place to live for a couple of months, an experience I’ll never forget, but I just can’t afford it any more. I’m broke!

The first time I drove past Temple Island, several weeks ago on the way to Henley, it was early morning and so foggy I could barely see the banks of the river. The thick bank of fog ended abrupty at the Island, a quite dramatic sight.

Last Saturday night, headed in the other direction, I moored near to Temple Island for the night. This time it was a clear sky and I realised that this is one of the most perfect places on the Thames, with fine views all around, sheep grazing and a perfect place for a picnic.