HAPPY NEW YEAR

10 01 16

I’ve just returned to Lady Cate. A huge blood orange sun was setting over the westerly woods lighting the undersides of the clouds above in lusciously rich shades from rose to apricot, set off perfectly by the blue sky above. Reminds me of the bright colours in Turner’s work where you look at the painting and can’t believe the colours of the sky can be so bright. But they are! Across the river a large flock of birds, which I don’t know, were settling in for the night chattering away to each other. A perfect evening.

The old house – Rafiki

I had been clearing out the old house and tarting it up a bit. I had thought it would be sold by now but it was looking very tired so, before Christmas, Tony and I spent a vigorous week painting most of the interior walls to great effect. Here’s hoping.

Healthy on board

Now here is a strange phenomenon. Like many an old git I was told by my doc that my blood pressure was too high at c.160/100. When I moved on to Lady Cate it went down to c. 130/80 and has stayed there ever since! What to make of it? Any ideas?

Air heater

As Mike had warned me, the old gas fired air heater in Lady Cate was completely caput. I’ve sold it for spares for £27! 

Knackered!

I’m getting a new diesel fired heater to replace it. (So I’m rather pleased we’ve had such a mild winter, so far.) They are v expensive at some £1,250 but there are copies available from both Russia and China at about £400.

Whilst there have been doubts about Russian and Chinese quality, in my experience those days are long gone. Russia used to make a great SLR camera called the Zenit-E at the height of the Cold War, still collectible today. In my many years working with Russia I saw some very sound engineering businesses with good quality control. And their launch rocket’s still going strong!

When I was looking for a special aluminium product for UK supply the Chinese produced the best sample of an aluminium structure, far better than the British sample, sad to say.

So I don’t think I’m taking a risk.

So I tried ordering a 5kW heater advertised on eBay from Russia. All went well until I tried Paypal which resolutely refused to allow me to pay. After a call or two I found out why. Paypal told me that, because of US sanctions on Russia they are not allowed to pay in to Russian companies. Ah well – China next. Simon, the Marina manager, has given me the name of an importer.

Email and Windows 10

I have at last succeeded in downloading Windows 10. BUT it’s knocked out my email completely! Having a hell of a job to get it going again.

SYSTEM RESTORED

I've been having problem after problem with my Microsoft Surface Pro, Windows updates and EE's WiFi. At last all seems to be OK. I had kept writing the blog content from time to time just to keep up the habit. So here is the update.

26 11 15

FREDDIE'S ARRIVED

 

 The most important news of the year.

Here is the terrible trio! Brilliant!

Spent a lovely day meeting him and all the Fiona & Michael family.

There's no doubt a young family keeps you young.

And infinitely more interesting than bilge pumps.

22 10 15

BILGE PUMPS

The other day a sudden loud non-stop roar came from the depths of Lady Cate. (!) I opened up the engine room space to find a museum piece of a bilge pump vigorously shaking itself and demanding attention. It was working and pumping out a little bilge water. The little automatic pump switch had activated as the bilge water level had crept up to the critical depth. Not a problem. Lady Cate is a wooden boat and a little soakage is normal. However the din was really too much.

The aged pump was attached by one screw to a loose bilge board which acted as a sounding board! I tried screwing it down with the other two screws, which reduced the noise somewhat but I have now taken it off the board and it is much quieter being suspended in mid-air by its substantial inlet and outlet pipes – a temporary solution only. I’ll make up a proper low acoustic mounting. (Shades of my navy days where I worked on acoustic mountings for submarine engines.)    I found another little bilge pump, newer, in the forward cabin, with an independent automatic switch and there is a larger 1400 gallons per hour pump in the engine compartment, which appears to have a built in switch.

As the wiring was chaotic and the switches proved unreliable when I tested them I asked Tony to help. He has tidied up the wiring and I will get two new switches in the hope of improved reliability. [Later: I can now confirm they working perfectly.]

16 10 15

MORE REFLECTION

Where have those last ten days gone? 

I went to Rafiki for a bit of clearing up, rubbish discarding, tai chi and shia tsu. That was five days. The rest?Here is Debbie, the tai chi and shia tsu maestro (?maestress?) outside her garden studio.

I feel I am going through some kind of transformation. If my peace of mind and blood pressure are anything to go by, it is for the better. Not exactly bug to butterfly, but the slow shedding of a carapace. Though Lady Cate needs my attention in many ways, they are not, at the moment, comfort threatening matters. So I am beginning to think more freely, as writing this shows.

Currently reading ‘Valuing the Earth’, a collection of great essays edited by Herman Daly, the Steady State economist and Kenneth Townsend. 

It’s 1045 and I haven’t had breakfast yet!

I like knowing that I am consuming close to the least energy necessary to keep me comfortable. I am not heating a whole house, just my snug. It is so good knowing it takes about 10 minutes to vacuum and dust the whole boat.

It is good to know that the girls are coping so well. I am magnificently proud of them both. I can’t believe my good luck.

Is my little snug like E M Fortser’s hexagonal ‘room’ in ‘When the machine stops’? Not really. ( See e.g. http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html. It was one of my school Eng. Lit. GCE studies. Did that stick in the memory!) My snug is my freedom. I can move it wherever water allows.

Undated

Tony and I took Lady Cate out to sea on a blustery day. A lovely river journey and some fine bouncing around across the river bar and out to sea!

 

There were few boats on the move. Most are heading back up to the marinas to be stored ashore for the winter but this pretty Cornish Shrimper was enjoying the best of autumn wind.

06 10 15

PAUSE FOR REFLECTION

Playing Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. A brilliant work, one of my Desert Island Discs.

Seems like no time since I wrote. Time is flying so very fast.

Something in me is telling me to take it easy even though there is so much to do. It has been a very busy and change ridden year. First Pop and Pammy dying, the funeral, the estate to manage, working out a new life, finding Lady Cate (that was uncanny timing), then working on the simple essentials to get boat life working comfortably, which it now is. Time for reflection on progress to date and thinking out the next steps, I suppose.

Later: Not very good at reflection when there's a huge To Do List, albeit none is vital. But somehow the command is there. I'm split in two!

My one man wok is great. This evening pork fillet, onion, pepper (red), spinach with noodles. A colourful plate is a healthy plate. Not too much quantity, but my weight is stable at a bit too much.

I switch from Radio 4 to ClassicFM at 7pm to avoid The Archers. Some music new to me this evening, choral, very soothing, cool even.  The Call of Wisdom by Will Todd apparently. Then I switch back when ClassicFM runs its adverts, which are mostly insulting to anyone's intelligence: it’s the repetition that irritates most.

 

THE RETURN OF SAMURAI

Up at 0530, hearty breakfast and off to Levington to join Alex, Gordon and David on Samurai to sail her back to Melton. Having done a passage plan just to keep in practice, I realised we were in for a difficult trip. The trouble is that to get the right height of tide at Melton and working back, at sea we had to beat, against wind and a strong northerly tide, up from Felixstowe to the River Deben. Not only that, the East Coast Pilot advises that the entrance to the River Deben is particularly difficult in an easterly wind.

http://www.gpsnauticalcharts.com/static_html/
nautical_charts_app/nautical_chart_images/2693_0.jpg

We had an easy start down the Orwell at the bottom of the tide with a steady gentle north easterly wind allowing us a broad reach. There was no commercial traffic in sight, nevertheless we held to the recommended small boats track south of the main channel. Steadily the seas got bumpier and lumpier but Samurai was a good match for them. We headed further out to sea before turning north as we hoped the deeper waters would give us a smoother ride than sailing over the shallows. This did not really work. The easterly wind had been blowing for over a week and had worked up a substantial swell of some five to seven feet at twenty feet intervals, not ideal for Samurai with a three to four foot free-board and a length of thirty six feet.

Progress was painfully slow and extremely bumpy. If we took a long reach out we had the swell on our port bow to beam, which gave us a strange corkscrew motion, pretty uncomfortable especially as the wind was no longer steady. If we took a long reach in we had the same problem but on the opposite side. We spotted the buoys, but against a 2.5 to 3 knot and a heavy swell we were making only 2 to 3 knots over the ground, so we were out there bouncing about for over two hours. How do these round-the-worlders do it, I was thinking. I was knackered after an hour!

Samurai home at evening after a stormy journey.

The Woodbridge Haven buoy was a gladdening sight. We crept ever so slowly up to her and gazed with trepidation at the river entrance. The swell was pounding the sands of the bar mercilessly. Oodles of foaming breakers. The narrow channel seemed narrower than ever before, but Alex took her in with impressive aplomb. Oh the joy of the quiet river waters! The wind was good so we managed to sail most of the 12 miles up past Woodbridge to Melton.

A great day out. My bunk was particularly cosy last night. Aching all over this morning!