Monday, 12 January 2009
Friday, 9 January 2009
Still alive
Hello all!
Just wanted you all to know that Girl On The Water is still alive, and still thinking of more ideas for new posts than she has had the time to write of late.
Still in Sheffield, life on the whole is going well, but The Boy and Boat Dramas are taking control at the moment.
I WILL still complete the story about the great move North soon, as time permits, but right now my efforts are concentrated around broken head gaskets, water pipes, and growing vegetables (!).
Anywho, I'm still alive, and will post more soon - promise!
Big love (and don't remove me from your RSS feed just yet),
B
x
Just wanted you all to know that Girl On The Water is still alive, and still thinking of more ideas for new posts than she has had the time to write of late.
Still in Sheffield, life on the whole is going well, but The Boy and Boat Dramas are taking control at the moment.
I WILL still complete the story about the great move North soon, as time permits, but right now my efforts are concentrated around broken head gaskets, water pipes, and growing vegetables (!).
Anywho, I'm still alive, and will post more soon - promise!
Big love (and don't remove me from your RSS feed just yet),
B
x
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Belated update - Friday 10 October - Going Tidal!
The Friday morning of the journey began with a little drama. I sprung out of bed early, all set to get up to Cromwell for 8am in order to make the tide up to Keadby. I had booked in with the lock keepers, but knew that I needed to set off before daylight in order to make it.
I made a coffee, checked the map, then went outside to start the engine. I turned the key as normal, but instead of hearing the engine sputtering into life, there was just a little "click". Maybe I had forgotten to warm the diesel coils. I tried again. Still nothing. Argh!
I quickly remembered at this point that my battery voltages had been lower than normal when I checked the multimeter on Thursday, but I had put this down to the fact that I accidentally left my inverter on for most of the day. I checked the battery voltage once more - 10 volts. That's why she wouldn't start. Fortunately, I carry a charged, spare battery for my headlight (long story) and with a set of jump leads and a little effort managed to get back up and running - phew. Sadly, this drama had taken around an hour, it was now daylight, and I had missed my slot for getting to Keadby in time for the tide. A quick phone call to the lock keeper later, my plan was changed to cruising just Cromwell-Torksey on the Friday, then Torksey-Keadby on the Saturday morning, leaving at first light. I quickly calculated that, assuming no further drama, I could still complete my journey in time so wasn't too annoyed.
The tidal river was pretty uneventful really. The sheer size of the river was awesome and took some getting used to, and I enjoyed cruising my boat on the moving water, trying to steer a perfect line down the channel to go as fast as possible, and keeping away from the mud flats and gravel banks so that I didn't get grounded. Steering the boat into the entrance of Torksey lock was interesting, as I was moving quite quickly, and the entrance is tiny in comparison to the river. Still, with a little caution and a lot of full-power from my engine I made it in safely. This is something which I quickly picked up on the moving water - there are times when you have to use a lot of power to make the boat go where you need it to. My little engine could only just make progress against the current, so it was important to get things right first time!
On arrival in Torksey, I checked the battery voltages once more. They hadn't charged. I tried to restart the engine, and couldn't. My knowledge of boat electrics is somewhat limited, but I had a look around in the engine bay to see if there was anything obvious broken. There wasn't. I started then engine with the jump leads once more, and confirmed that the voltages weren't changing. The batteries definitely weren't charging. The alternator and battery management system all appeared to be connected OK - the connecting wires were still there and in one piece. I realised that I could probably restart the engine using the jump leads again to continue my journey, but really didn't want to do this because if the engine had stopped for any reason (e.g. weed round the propeller) I might not have been able to restart it. On moving water, that would not be much fun. I wasn't ready to use my shiny new anchor! Also, I needed to know what the problem was, and so eventually called Oliver from Thorne Boat Services out.
Oliver arrived in just over an hour, and quickly spotted that my alternator only had one connecting wire where it should have had 2. The other wire had disconnected itself, presumably from all the engine vibration from the past few days' cruising. He reconnected it, and my batteries began charging back up. Perfect!
The lock keeper had told me that I needed to leave Torksey at first light in the morning in order to get into Keadby lock before 11:30 - otherwise the water would be too low and I wouldn't be able to get into the lock for all the silt, and would be stuck outside until 3pm. In view of this, I got an early night. All the fresh air is rather tiring.
I made a coffee, checked the map, then went outside to start the engine. I turned the key as normal, but instead of hearing the engine sputtering into life, there was just a little "click". Maybe I had forgotten to warm the diesel coils. I tried again. Still nothing. Argh!
I quickly remembered at this point that my battery voltages had been lower than normal when I checked the multimeter on Thursday, but I had put this down to the fact that I accidentally left my inverter on for most of the day. I checked the battery voltage once more - 10 volts. That's why she wouldn't start. Fortunately, I carry a charged, spare battery for my headlight (long story) and with a set of jump leads and a little effort managed to get back up and running - phew. Sadly, this drama had taken around an hour, it was now daylight, and I had missed my slot for getting to Keadby in time for the tide. A quick phone call to the lock keeper later, my plan was changed to cruising just Cromwell-Torksey on the Friday, then Torksey-Keadby on the Saturday morning, leaving at first light. I quickly calculated that, assuming no further drama, I could still complete my journey in time so wasn't too annoyed.
The tidal river was pretty uneventful really. The sheer size of the river was awesome and took some getting used to, and I enjoyed cruising my boat on the moving water, trying to steer a perfect line down the channel to go as fast as possible, and keeping away from the mud flats and gravel banks so that I didn't get grounded. Steering the boat into the entrance of Torksey lock was interesting, as I was moving quite quickly, and the entrance is tiny in comparison to the river. Still, with a little caution and a lot of full-power from my engine I made it in safely. This is something which I quickly picked up on the moving water - there are times when you have to use a lot of power to make the boat go where you need it to. My little engine could only just make progress against the current, so it was important to get things right first time!
On arrival in Torksey, I checked the battery voltages once more. They hadn't charged. I tried to restart the engine, and couldn't. My knowledge of boat electrics is somewhat limited, but I had a look around in the engine bay to see if there was anything obvious broken. There wasn't. I started then engine with the jump leads once more, and confirmed that the voltages weren't changing. The batteries definitely weren't charging. The alternator and battery management system all appeared to be connected OK - the connecting wires were still there and in one piece. I realised that I could probably restart the engine using the jump leads again to continue my journey, but really didn't want to do this because if the engine had stopped for any reason (e.g. weed round the propeller) I might not have been able to restart it. On moving water, that would not be much fun. I wasn't ready to use my shiny new anchor! Also, I needed to know what the problem was, and so eventually called Oliver from Thorne Boat Services out.
Oliver arrived in just over an hour, and quickly spotted that my alternator only had one connecting wire where it should have had 2. The other wire had disconnected itself, presumably from all the engine vibration from the past few days' cruising. He reconnected it, and my batteries began charging back up. Perfect!
The lock keeper had told me that I needed to leave Torksey at first light in the morning in order to get into Keadby lock before 11:30 - otherwise the water would be too low and I wouldn't be able to get into the lock for all the silt, and would be stuck outside until 3pm. In view of this, I got an early night. All the fresh air is rather tiring.
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Belated update - Thursday 9 October
We were finally allowed out of Redhill lock and onto the Trent at 9:30am on Thursday morning - somewhat frustrating, having jumped out of bed at 6:30, but still far preferable to wasting yet another day sitting around staring at water level indicators.
The first thing that struck me about the Trent was the sheer size of it - from the onset, it was far far wider than any waterway that I had cruised on before and the moored boats were far bigger than any that I had passed until now. From here on in, the water just got wider, the boats and locks got bigger, and the current got faster.
Despite being allowed onto the river, Thursday got off to a slow start. We made very good time down to Beeston lock, due to the amount of water on the river. By this point, I had begun to learn to keep the boat sitting on the channel (fastest/deepest part of the river) to get an extra couple of mph for free. This is quite fun, until you get it a bit wrong on the corners and the sweeping current causes the boat to list like crazy. OK, it's fun then too......but I don't really want to sink Muddy Waters! Sadly, we got stuck for 1.5 hours at Beeston lock, waiting for the BW men to clear loads of debris from the lock that had been washed down by the floods of the last few days. Still, the time wasn't wasted - we went into the chandlery there and kitted ourselves out with lifejackets. On the canal lifejackets feel like overkill, but on moving water they are definitely a good idea, as those currents are strong, and I can see really easily how difficult it could be to get back to the boat (or out of the water at all in most places) if you were to fall in.
We finally got through the lock at Beeston with another narrowboat on it's way to Lincoln, and then followed the canal through the centre of Nottingham. On arrival at one of the locks (castle lock?) , I was slightly intimidated to see a big crowd watching us work through the lock. It turned out that their office fire alarm was going off, and the bit of car park by the towpath was their assembly point. They took photos of us, so we took a couple back of them and then turned our attention to working the lock nicely.
After the Nottingham canal, we rejoined the Trent and followed the navigation all the way to Newark, tying up in the dark on the BW moorings near Newark town lock. These moorings were rather odd as they were up against the pavement which reminded me of a harbour wall - the roof of my boat was on a level with the towpath. It turned out that the bar we spotted next to these moorings was a Pizza Express. We were both too tired to venture further, and so ended up eating there before returning to the boat and passing out at about 9pm!
The first thing that struck me about the Trent was the sheer size of it - from the onset, it was far far wider than any waterway that I had cruised on before and the moored boats were far bigger than any that I had passed until now. From here on in, the water just got wider, the boats and locks got bigger, and the current got faster.
Despite being allowed onto the river, Thursday got off to a slow start. We made very good time down to Beeston lock, due to the amount of water on the river. By this point, I had begun to learn to keep the boat sitting on the channel (fastest/deepest part of the river) to get an extra couple of mph for free. This is quite fun, until you get it a bit wrong on the corners and the sweeping current causes the boat to list like crazy. OK, it's fun then too......but I don't really want to sink Muddy Waters! Sadly, we got stuck for 1.5 hours at Beeston lock, waiting for the BW men to clear loads of debris from the lock that had been washed down by the floods of the last few days. Still, the time wasn't wasted - we went into the chandlery there and kitted ourselves out with lifejackets. On the canal lifejackets feel like overkill, but on moving water they are definitely a good idea, as those currents are strong, and I can see really easily how difficult it could be to get back to the boat (or out of the water at all in most places) if you were to fall in.
We finally got through the lock at Beeston with another narrowboat on it's way to Lincoln, and then followed the canal through the centre of Nottingham. On arrival at one of the locks (castle lock?) , I was slightly intimidated to see a big crowd watching us work through the lock. It turned out that their office fire alarm was going off, and the bit of car park by the towpath was their assembly point. They took photos of us, so we took a couple back of them and then turned our attention to working the lock nicely.
After the Nottingham canal, we rejoined the Trent and followed the navigation all the way to Newark, tying up in the dark on the BW moorings near Newark town lock. These moorings were rather odd as they were up against the pavement which reminded me of a harbour wall - the roof of my boat was on a level with the towpath. It turned out that the bar we spotted next to these moorings was a Pizza Express. We were both too tired to venture further, and so ended up eating there before returning to the boat and passing out at about 9pm!
Friday, 10 October 2008
A little drama, but I'm still alive!
The last couple of days have been eventful! A couple of moorings with no mobile signal and then an electrical fiasco today which resulted in an engineer callout to sort a problem with my alternator meant that I was cut off from the world for a couple of days. OK, slight exaggeration, I have been using my mobile in places but couldn't get on the internet until now.
I just posted a quick update that I wrote yesterday morning, and will add the photos etc as soon as I can-probably tomorrow night.
I have made it onto the tidal part of the Trent, and am currently sat on the safe haven of floating pontoons at Torksey lock, waiting for daylight in the morning to catch the tide up to Keadby. Just praying the electrical drama is now over so that I can start my engine!
Connection time is limited to my laptop battery life right now, and my connection is painfully slow.
Proper update coming ASAP.
I just posted a quick update that I wrote yesterday morning, and will add the photos etc as soon as I can-probably tomorrow night.
I have made it onto the tidal part of the Trent, and am currently sat on the safe haven of floating pontoons at Torksey lock, waiting for daylight in the morning to catch the tide up to Keadby. Just praying the electrical drama is now over so that I can start my engine!
Connection time is limited to my laptop battery life right now, and my connection is painfully slow.
Proper update coming ASAP.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Finally back on the move
Yesterday, I sprung out of bed at about 6am to make some coffee and check on the water indicator marker before sunrise. By this point I was fed up of waiting and praying to the weather gods, so fortunately the water was right on the line between red and amber. With no wind, I decided to go for it.
I set the lock ready, so that as soon as it was light enough (about 7am) we could set off. The journey from Cossington to Sileby was beautiful, but uneventful. The morning mist on the water reminded me of quiet mornings walking from boat to car in Rugby last winter. Though flowing, the river looked impressively still. It is hard to believe that this was the same river that we had been waiting 2 days for.
On arrival in the lock at Sileby, the water indicator was again on the amber/red border line, however this time there was a rather serious looking weir off to one side, creating some turbulence and white water in what was to be our path just the other side of a lock. I don't think I would want to moor at the top of that! Not ideal territory for a narrowboat, really. An estuary tug went down, and was absolutely fine. Watching someone else go first allowed me to see where the current took the boat, and I then followed. The ease at which we travelled down that stretch was an anticlimax really, after the build-up and excitement. Whilst deciding whether or not to go, I took some interesting photos of the white water.
The rest of the day was given over to cruising through Loughborough, Zouch, Kegworth, and down the remainder of the River Soar to Redhill Lock, the last lock before the Trent. En route we managed to get filled with diesel (just to be sure on the river), fill the water and empty the loos. Having come through the last couple of flood warning lights (on green) it was rather a disappointment to be met by the red light of doom at the last hurdle before the Trent! Still, at least we got a decent day's cruising in at last.
Mum and I moored for the day at around 4/5pm, taking one of the last spaces available in the shadow of Radcliffe power station. We wandered over to the marina opposite and bought a rather hefty anchor together with the necessary chain, rope and connectors in preparation for the Trent. Unfortunately, the marina is a 5 minute walk away over 3 bridges, and anchors and chains are rather heavy. Still, the exercise did me good.
Last night I swapped crew - my little brother arrived, and mum left in his car. We're all set for another full day on the water today - the weather is looking good, so fingers crossed for the water now too.
I set the lock ready, so that as soon as it was light enough (about 7am) we could set off. The journey from Cossington to Sileby was beautiful, but uneventful. The morning mist on the water reminded me of quiet mornings walking from boat to car in Rugby last winter. Though flowing, the river looked impressively still. It is hard to believe that this was the same river that we had been waiting 2 days for.
On arrival in the lock at Sileby, the water indicator was again on the amber/red border line, however this time there was a rather serious looking weir off to one side, creating some turbulence and white water in what was to be our path just the other side of a lock. I don't think I would want to moor at the top of that! Not ideal territory for a narrowboat, really. An estuary tug went down, and was absolutely fine. Watching someone else go first allowed me to see where the current took the boat, and I then followed. The ease at which we travelled down that stretch was an anticlimax really, after the build-up and excitement. Whilst deciding whether or not to go, I took some interesting photos of the white water.
The rest of the day was given over to cruising through Loughborough, Zouch, Kegworth, and down the remainder of the River Soar to Redhill Lock, the last lock before the Trent. En route we managed to get filled with diesel (just to be sure on the river), fill the water and empty the loos. Having come through the last couple of flood warning lights (on green) it was rather a disappointment to be met by the red light of doom at the last hurdle before the Trent! Still, at least we got a decent day's cruising in at last.
Mum and I moored for the day at around 4/5pm, taking one of the last spaces available in the shadow of Radcliffe power station. We wandered over to the marina opposite and bought a rather hefty anchor together with the necessary chain, rope and connectors in preparation for the Trent. Unfortunately, the marina is a 5 minute walk away over 3 bridges, and anchors and chains are rather heavy. Still, the exercise did me good.
Last night I swapped crew - my little brother arrived, and mum left in his car. We're all set for another full day on the water today - the weather is looking good, so fingers crossed for the water now too.
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