Boating at Christmas

On Boxing Day we left the marina and headed south to the facilities block at Cosgrove. Here we emptied the cassette and topped up with water. It's quite a low pressure one here, and not helped by a kink in the short hose we use when we can get the bow near the water point. (Memo to self: buy hose joining adapters.)

We had lunch while waiting for the tank to fill.

Then we continued to The Galleon, just the other side of the Iron Trunk aqueduct over the Great Ouse. There's a handy winding hole here, and it's just a 15 minute walk to Ally and Ben's house.

On the Sunday morning our time on the 48 hour mooring was almost up. We awoke to another thick frost.

By the afternoon any ice on the cut had vanished, and we made our way back to Thrupp Wharf Marina. Between Cosgrove and Taverners Boat Club we stopped the two boats of Jules Fuels for a couple of bags of coal (was it Supertherm? I'm terrible at remembering the names of coal brands!). When we reversed into the marina we found it had probably half an inch of ice. We prefer to moor with the nose facing out, so I continued back to the pontoon. I would have preferred any ice breaking to be done going forwards, but it was only 150 feet or so.

Mooring this way round means running a hose the full length of the boat plus a few feet to get to the tap; this is why we usually top up at a canalside water point.

Ooh - I've just remembered Herbie Neil's method of draining down the shower mixer. If I recall correctly he opens all the taps and blows back down the shower hose to expel any remaining water. I didn't do this on leaving the boat - perhaps I should have done. I have left an electric fan heater on a low thermostat setting. I hope that will prevent too much freezing on board before we return at the end of this month.