Starting my new life - or at least trying to start...
As you can see from the photo accompanying the last post, things did not go smoothly once I had moved aboard. Don't Panic was moored where I bought her - at Crick Marina on the Grand Union canal, next to junction 18 of the M1. I had to get her to my new marina at Barton on the Trent and Mersey. It takes 50 minutes to drive a car between the two (I know, I did it often enough!). It takes around 4 days to do it by boat.
Since I was so inexperienced, I had asked a couple of friends from Devon to help me move her. Nigel and Jacquie had lots of experience boating and kindly agreed to try boating in January. They drove all the way over, but once they arrived, it was clear we were going nowhere - the canal had frozen solid. We tried our best; Nigel even tried moving the boat backwards by breaking the ice with a pole and then moving into the space left. We moved 9 feet in 90 minutes and then admitted defeat (with other boaters looking on and laughing!) It was obvious that the ice wasn't going to melt any time soon and so Nigel and Jacquie regretfully left to go home. I stayed on the boat to get acquainted. I certainly got acquainted with the cold as my diesal boiler refused to work and so all I had was my woodburner. That was fine during the day, but once I retired for the night, the fire died and in the morning I was scraping ice off the inside of the portholes and opening the fridge to get some warmth on the boat!
Eventually the ice melted and Nigel and Jacquie returned. We cruised out of the marina entrance with hearts full of joy and with the January sun shining down on us. At last, I was going to Barton and could finally feel I had arrived in this new life. The good mood lasted down the Watford Flight (of locks) and all the way to Norton Junction where we found an insignificant little piece of paper informing us that the canal was closed at Braunston and would be until the end of January! I couldn't believe it. I had checked stoppages on the internet and hadn't seen this one. The harbour master at Crick hadn't said anything either. I stood on the towpath and wept. Would I ever get to Barton? Would I ever be able to pick up my post or be able to start looking for a job? Or would I be stuck in what felt like purgatory forever?
Poor Nigel and Jacquie had driven the width of the country twice and still hadn't had a cruise, so we decided to go the other way for a couple of days and try and enjoy ourselves before returning to Crick.
I was really glad we did, right up to the point when the boat started to sink! Although I had had a full survey, the surveyor had failed to spot that my weedhatch had no seal and consequently when we were going along, water was leaking into the engine compartment. He also failed to spot that the float switch to the bilge pump wasn't working and so the bilge did not turn on automatically. The first I knew of trouble was when the battery alarm went off as the engine disappeared under water and electricity started to arc across the water. I ran to the stern to find my rear cabin floor was under a couple of inches of water. We stopped just in time and managed to operate the bilge by hand. I stood watching as the boat started to lift itself from the water and thought "That's enough, I want to go home". But this was home and a home that was capable of sinking. I was distraught, exhausted and frightened. We limped back to Crick and then I was on my own again, waiting for the canal to open and spending money on necessary repairs.
January passed very slowly, but at least it gave me a chance to rest.
February came and with it renewed optimism, surely this time nothing could go wrong? Ha! wait till the next episode...