Boating at last

We are moored up just before Rugby town bridge at Brownsover - in the shade but it is still too hot ...

Mel in Waikanae, ready to go in the suitcase. Holding the best Marmite, none of this UK stuff ...

It's 12 days since we got to the boat but we didn't actually leave the marina until a week ago. Well, we did leave on Wednesday but had to go back rapidly, after a fortuitous check of the weedhatch. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me go back to the beginning ...

The journey to the UK was lovely in Business Class - AirNZ to Shanghai Pudong (12 hours but actually only 11), a four hour stopover, and then Business Class on Virgin Atlantic to LHR - also very lovely, great food, and great staff, lots of sleep.

A yummy meal on board Virgin Atlantic partially eaten before I remembered to photograph it. Even though my memory of the flights is hazy, I know it's Virgin Atlantic because the salt and pepper shakers are in the shape of little planes ...

This time we picked up the car straightaway instead of collecting it the next morning - Saturday morning at Enterprise is always really busy with a queue often out the door, so Friday night was a better bet. Into the hotel, realise that the careful packing for ease of locating stuff means nothing after 30 hours of travel when the mind has lost memory of recent events ... And then dinner at the hotel with Barry and Pauline who had lovely news that they are coming back to NZ and that their grandkids are coming to NZ to live too. Yay!!!

The next morning we drove to Desborough up the M1 - I am sure drivers have got less patient here than they were when we first started coming over: lots of non-indicated lane changes with almost no space in front of following cars ... We arrived at Mick and Julia's place before they did - they had been down to Waka Huia finishing up tidying after Mick's marathon work on board. Still a few bits to finish, but it is looking wonderful.

He has replaced a number of the panels (and trim) in the saloon where there had been water damage from former chimney holes that hadn't been adequately sealed - we got that work done properly last year by the lovely Dale at Braunston. Mick built a corner seat and had a leather covered cushion made (now called the naughty seat ...) He's fixed the book case and its little cupboard now has a shelf (used to have the pump for the diesel heater that we removed). And he sanded and varnished the porthole surrounds, fixed the book case, lifted all of David's wiring for the electronics and put it behind the panelling instead of dangling below it ... He's painted the duck-hatch doors inside and the stern doors and they now both sport silver ferns - purchased online from Australia! How does that happen?

I had undercoated these doors last year, but didn't know what colours to paint them. But good old Mick knew, and don't the silver ferns look choice?

He's fixed the pigeon box that wouldn't shut properly and repainted it complete with a diamond pattern on one end outside and replaced the timber trim that had got water-damaged inside. 

He's fitted new taps for the bathroom vanity - they had seized up last year. And I gather they were an absolute bastard to get off; and he's re-tiled the vanity top,  painted the bathroom walls and put a new piece of panelling in where we removed the self pumpout switching (and we'd left a hole where the switch was ...). Since we returned he has put up the brass rod for the new curtains, informed me the ones I brought over are too scanty, so he has taken away my large redundant curtain of the same material (made for privacy between the saloon and the bedroom but never used) and at the end of the season, he will take our curtains (scanty variety) and add some fabric to them to make them more voluminous - did you know he sews as well? He is a marvel, that Mick! He's also made the front door curtain into two and now has some of that material with which to make a couple of tie backs.

He had sanded down one of the worktops in the galley and used some benchtop oil on it - looks great and has left me the sandpaper and the oil to do it again. He painted the stern bands and the swan's neck ... So we are looking very smart now, inside and out. I know I have missed itemising some things (one is the removal of the rotting roof box and repairing the roof under it). There will be more...

Lily pads in the marina by Waka Huia. Under the lily pads though was the ghastly blanket weed ...

Anyway, so on Wednesday we were finally ready to move off from the jetty, and I thought the boat was sluggish coming out between two moored boats. As there was lots of blanket weed in the marina, esp near the jetties, I asked David to check the weedhatch when we were finally outside the marina, and before we were going to cruise down to Foxton.

A damn good thing I did ask for that to happen, because even though he couldn't see it, he could hear water coming into the bilge. Bilge pump swiftly turned on and David went back to the marina to get Dean and Martin to come and cast their eyes over it. They declared that the stern gear was leaking, and that we needed to come back into the marina so they could lift us out. Rather than wait for Steve to return from leave the following day and then get into line behind other jobs that were no doubt in the queue, we phoned our trusty Ed Shiers. Fabulous man that he is, he travelled 2.5 hours to come down to repair the stern gear. He got to us at about 2.30, was finished (with Mick's help, as the stern gear was on extremely tightly and required much use of levers made from pipe and spanners and crescents ...) just before 5.30, and Dean lowered us back into the water. Oh bugger! The leak persisted and was not the stern gear at all, but a faulty weld around the prop shaft - it had failed when the grit blasting took place. Dean, who is an ace welder, declared the weld was useless - it was in 2 rows rather than one smooth rounded piece, and part of it had given way. So it was up out of the water again, and on to the blocks for the night ...

On the blocks with obligatory staircase. It felt very weird, I must say.

You can see how clean the hull is after being zinced and blacked with two-pot!

In the morning, I made more cheese scones (I had made some the day before when Ed was on his way - for Ed, Dean and Martin, plus Carol in the office and Mick, David and me - we donated Julia's share as extras for Ed). It is a rule that you must feed the workers!

So promptly at 9.15am, Dean and Martin came round with the welding gear and ground the weld down all round the pipe and then re-welded the whole thing. He did it in two halves so that the stern gear didn't get too hot from the intense welding heat. A good idea since Ed had re-sealed it ... Martin painted it with 2 pot epoxy, we waited a wee while for it to dry

So then it was back into the water for a test - yay! Leak was gone. Scones were delivered and we were off down to Foxton to await the arrival of the grandsons that evening.

A few photos from the last few days - blog will catch up later ...

This one's for Derek and Ted ...

I couldn't see what they were serving the children with ...

After an extremely long day's boating (left Welford Junction at 7.30am, moored up just before the Braunston Tunnel at 6pm) we caught up with Laughing John. He and David drank sloe gin and I drank chardonnay (of course)  and we ate cheese, hummus, apples and crackers. No dinner, just nibbles, alcohol and much laughter. I cooked brekkie for us all in the morning and showed John Mick's handiwork - he was very impressed.

This morning, David steering through his first bridgehole - after he'd had to take over while I used the onboard facilities ...

More later - I am sure David must be just about back from a shopping trip in Rugby, and I will have to get dinner cooked - such an effort, as I bought two Tesco curry meals today, plus naan breads.

It is so bloody hot, we will be eating out on the towpath, where we are moored up in the shade and it is still roasting! (Last year we complained about the heatwave that lasted a couple of weeks while we were down on the Avon and then we complained about it raining lots for several weeks. And now I am complaining about excessive heat again. I blame Trump, frankly.)