Life Afloat

Under the footbridge at Paddington Basin

I’d never driven far in the dark but I always wanted to try it. All the way from Cowley to Paddington there are no locks to work so it’s perfect for an early evening autumn cruise.

I didn’t want to have to stop along the way so I made a big flask of coffee, grabbed some fruit and put the radio on. Adjusted the headlight, tested the horn, opened a few curtains and stuck the lights on inside the boat. Just in case. Then I set off.

Reached Bull’s Bridge quickly. Carry on and you go to Brentford, so I turned left underneath the small white bridge towards Paddington.

It was quite magical passing rows of moored boats with lights on and smoke pouring out of chimneys. Very few boats were on the move so late.

Drove through Northolt, beside a golf course and then past warehouses, where it began to get dark and spooky. The headlight flattened the perspective and sometimes made it difficult to see which way the canal was turning. Only a few cyclists, headlamps on, were using the towpath.

Moored at the 24 hour supermarket in Kensal Green to resupply then pushed on.

Arrived in Little Venice where boats lined both sides of the canal, double berthed in places. It’s a very popular spot and there were no rings to moor on, so I carried. Drove under the pretty blue bridge, past the floating cafe and on to Paddington basin where I moored behind the train station. I love the basin at night with the office block lights shining and reflecting in the water.

Internet access can be a problem for the continuous cruiser. This weekend I have to do some research, write a couple of articles and design a website and for that I need to be online.

So today I travelled slowly along the Grand Union from Kensal Green towards Paddington with my computer on the seat next to me, looking for a wifi signal that wasn’t passworded. This activity is known in techie circles as wardriving. I finally found a strong unpassworded signal where the canal meets Harrow Road, next to a pretty blue bridge.

Is this legal? In Ealing a man was prosecuted for sitting in his car every day with his laptop open, parked outside someone’s house. The police found he had been using the householder’s wifi connection or “stealing bandwidth” as the law refers to it. The complication is that some people deliberately share their connections (e.g. cafes might offer free wifi) , whilst others don’t realise they should password their connection or don’t know how to do it. And there is no way to tell them apart.

Inside a boat I’m not that conspicuous and as I’m cruising a lot I won’t be using the same connection for long at a time, so no-one will notice. And I really do need to check my emails…

Today it’s exactly one year since I started living on Bristol Fashion. It’s been the best year of my life in many ways. Buying a boat has made me happier. A year on, just starting the engine and setting off along the canal still makes me feel good inside. Mooring at dusk in a strange place, being constantly on the move, feels right. This is the life I always knew I wanted.

Coming up to Cowley lock and about to pass under the fairly narrow white bridge next to it, with boats moored wither side, a narrowboat tried to speed up and overtake me. There obviously wasn’t room for both of us so I increased speed and he dropped back behind me. Then as soon as I slowed down (when navigating a lock, especially one next to a bridge, especially when your boat has a high wooden cabin it’s safer to go in slowly) he tried to overtake again.

There was a craft already in the lock and when it emptied, despite me arriving first, the narrowboat rushed in ahead of me and its crew started closing the gates. I beeped the horn for them to let me in beside them. They looked surprised that I was annoyed.

All their crew left the boat to work the lock. No-one tied it up. As the water level fell their boat drifted backwards and nearly hit the cill. I remonstrated with the driver asking what he was doing but he seemed unconcerned. I on the other hand was concerned, because if their boat tips over it might take mine with it. He just said “Oh I never bother to tie up”.

I assume he didn’t own that boat. It must have been hired because surely no-one would risk their own boat in that way. I’m not saying that everyone needs to take a two day helmsman’s course but the half hour training that many hire boat companies give is obviously not enough.

(This isn’t the worst idiot driver I’ve ever seen. I once watched a man deliberately and repeatedly crashing a hired boat into a bridge to amuse his toddler son, who was sat precariously on the roof, while he filmed it all on camcorder.)

I have a techie tool that tells me the words people typed into Google to find this website.

That’s how I know that a lot of people search for information on “how much does it cost to live on a dutch barge”, “live on a boat” and “little venice” in which case I hope they found what they wanted because that’s what this blog is all about. The person looking for “bahamas life afloat” might have been a bit disappointed.

Good to see that someone wants to know about “barge maritime driving instruction uk” because I think it’s important to know what you’re doing before setting sail and whoever asked “can i handle boat alone in locks” should be reassured by the piece I wrote on that very topic.

But here’s the one that worried me: “finding a boat off of its mooring salvage right in the uk” – obviously someone is planning a career in legalised piracy! Excuse me, I’m just rushing back home to check I tied up properly…

Congratulations to British Waterways (and their chap called Matthew) for being especially busy the last few weekends putting notices on boats for licence evasion and mooring offences. I, like many boaters, applaud that you’re policing the canal system so vigorously.

Having said that, I have to admit you got me twice this month. Once outside the Swan and Bottle pub in Uxbridge when I stayed two nights on a one day mooring and again when I left the boat the whole weekend on the overnight mooring at Cowley.

Sorry. Won’t do it again.

Top marks for the red warning stickers that peel off leaving no mark on the windows; I once got a notice in Maidenhead and it took half an hour to scrape off the sticker, which leaked gooey yellow chemicals into the river as it came off.