KITTY HAS ARRIVED

I have had a need long in the gestation. Before travelling seriously Lady Cate has to have a tender, for going ashore when at anchor and who knows what other situations. I decided I'd also have the joy of a little local sailing. Swallows and Amazons revisited - both Peter Duck and Nancy Blackett are moored in the Deben.

So, after months of looking, I've bought Kitty from Andy Seedhouse. our local, long established, small boat merchant. Made in Lowestoft, she is an 8ft pram dinghy with a single sail lug rig.

Here she is, lying snuggled up to Lady Cate's bow.

And here she is being rigged.

 

 And now waiting for the wind.

Susie, Mick's American wife, will paint her name on soon. I must get some rubbing strake on her.

SCULPTURE - FOUND TECHNOLOGY

Tony has fixed my Bose radio/cd player by replacing the laser head. The broken head is such an intricate little thing (which seems worth so much more than the c£15 it cost) that I was loathe to throw it away. 

By chance I saw a shaft bearing thrown into the waste skip. It is a fine piece of precision engineering, using high grade steels and having ball bearings. The balls of ball bearings are precision items. Spinning and taking the load as they do, they have to be very accurately made. But their brilliance of manufacture is rarely acknowledged.

So here they are together, a little poem to high technology.

Happy days.

LEAK LICKED

As with any boat there is always ongoing maintenance. One that came with Lady Cate was the water heater - calorifier as many call it. It is a fresh water heater that is heated both from the engine cooling water and a standard 240V 750W immersion heater. The problem was that the immersion heater plate was leaking. 240V and water don't mix! The leak had been bunged up with both black and white goos of various kinds and the power disconnected. A sensible temporary measure that needed putting right.

Tony managed to extract the offending part from the water heater, which is handily tucked away in a very uncomfortable place. I cleaned off the goos. It was obvious the plate had been slightly buckled and a welding repair had left so much sputter around that the seals around the immersion heater mounts were not snugging tight. Mick cleaned up the sputter and reformed the welds; then put new O rings on and tightened up. I managed to put the heater and plate back in place and - hooray! - no leaks - cross fingers - touch wood.

Tony refitted the electrics and now, LO! Hot and cold running water. Luxury indeed.

AIR HEATER SAGA CONTINUES

I bought ten metres of insulated ducting to carry the warm from the heater to the cabins. The ducting is a central tube of heavy duty wire wound plasticised foil covered with insulating rock wool and a outer coating of plasticised foil. It came in a box one metre long from which it sprang out like a jack-in-a-box!

I had to lay it out throughout Lady Cate. This involved clearing out cupboards, uprooting panelling and cutting holes through bulkheads.

The silver snake got everywhere!

Then, disaster. I asked for a 12V heater but got a 24V one. Cock up in despatch over in China. As you can see the fuel pump is 12V.
I am waiting for a 12V heater to be sent.

VARNISHING - WHOOPEE

The wind is gusting 25 knots, making Lady Cate twist and turn at her moorings. It's lovely to be in this lively weather. (Well, when moored up!)

A boat is an endless project of maintenance and improvement. That's what's (!) been filling my time.

Varnishing

 Lady Cate's wheelhouse and topside fittings have been in need of a serious refurb
 for some time. So now I'm getting down to it, starting with the starboard side of the wheelhouse and the starboard bulwark strake. Preparation by endless sanding down is the key. Sanding is very tedious, making potato peeling for an army quite preferable.

[Perhaps George Herbert, (17thC poet, priest and hymn writer) got it right with his poem now known as The Elixir. (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/elixir.htm)  Turn tedious actions into praise by taking a new perspective on the task.]

This is the area of activity. I have already sanded down and varnished the section forward of the door. Please note the shine.

I took off the sliding door retainers and the step up to the poop deck.These I could work on inside. The door itself is in fine condition, so I'll leave that 'til later.

Outside has to be timed with the weather. The BBC Met Office forecasts have been notably accurate this week.

  

 

But, as you can see, the strake is in parlous condition.

 

Now looking much better.

But there's much more to do!

More soon.

NEARLY SPRING

Yet again, where has that month gone? I must get more disciplined, writing the blog more frequently with shorter entries and more pictures.

Yet more selling

I’ve sold the old bookcase/display cabinet using eBay. I had thought to keep it for all my books and for sentimental reasons. But no, be strong, it must go. This downsizing house clearance business is not easy, especially when sentiment is involved. I suspect modern furniture does not generate the same sense of family attachment as used to be the case.

James was very keen to have the bookcase as it just fitted a space in his place. Bought me a bottle wine as thanks! He and his son came to collect so I got them to put the carcase of the military chest on the roof of my car and I drove it back up to Melton to put in the store.

Doing 50mph in the slow lane was very relaxing. Everyone else has to work round you!

Bike

Is now fully fitted out with mudguards, panniers and padlock. No excuse now for avoiding exercise by cycling and swimming. I can cycle down to the pool in ten minutes. Deep breath!

 

 

It’s not easy getting in and out of the wheelhouse!

I’ve ordered a cover so that I can keep it outside.

 

New bird species

 

Delighted to see a pair of Teal close to Lady Cate. First time I’ve ever seen them. They are delicate and graceful in build and movement. Beautiful.

 [Pictures from Google Images]

 

Mailbox

Really settling in now so I’ve got a mailbox. It has to compete with the many others outside the office stairs so I thought I’d get something slightly different. I needed to paint my name and Lady Cate’s on the side but couldn’t get transfers or stencils anywhere in Woodbridge but I found some children’s play letters, painted them and stuck them on.

 

The finished article.

In place on the office stairway post amongst the others, flag aloft!

 Low tide, clear morning, wide open skies

A picture is worth 10,000 words.

Four more teals?

beaks down flat happily sucking, slurping, sieving across the mud. Not the same as the first pair I saw. I didn’t know there were many varieties of teal. These new ones are most probably a bird I’d never heard of, Garganey, females.

 

Wander in London

Having stayed overnight with Allie, my younger daughter, a curate in Shadwell, I wandered back to Liverpool Street station through the transformed old docklands and the City. The walk to the Tower, despite intense residential development, is very peaceful. Everyone's at work!

Surprising wildlife on the way.

Bold, confident Canada Geese.

Tufted Duck in the old dock waterway.

Memorial sculpture with The Shard in the distance.

Feeding the birds.

A bold black-headed gull.

Cluttons – one of dozens of estate agents dealing with the thousands of flats built in the renovated warehouses.

Early morning grey! The Shard, The Council House and Tower Bridge.

Thames moorings at low tide.

Rear of the warehouses, now converted into flats, with London hire bikes.

The Dickens Inn, St. Katherine’s Dock

St. Katherine’s Dock, rescued anchor at one end of a retractable pedestrian bridge designed by the great canal engineerTelford.

More of Telford’s bridge in the foreground, brutalist hotel, converted warehouses and luxury yachts in between.

The cannon of the Tower of London reminding Boris who’s boss.

HMS Belfast and a modern river ferry.

Hard at work guarding the Tower!

Bemused tourists.

Ancient and Modern

And in to The City past one of its guardians.

 HASTA LA VISTA!

ANOTHER GOOD MORNING

Birds

On this riverside berth the Wheelhouse is just like a bird hide, even though the windows are large and the birds can surely see me. This morning there was, on the low tide mud flats, the greatest variety I've yet seen:

- Shelduck
- Redshank
- Oystercatcher
- Snipe
- Curlew
- Little egret
- Common gull 
- Lapwing

Rafiki

We've accepted an offer on Rafiki. Here's hoping it goes through. That will be a great weight off my mind.

Bike
 
My bike bits are arriving, including mudguards. I can't understand why all bikes aren't fitted with them. Next job is fitting them all, then there'll be no excuse for avoiding swimming exercise!

Printer+

I've bought this HP printer/fax/scanner/copier. Quite a hoo hah getting the wireless connection up and running. It only cost £27ish which by no stretch of the imagination covers its cost, but the two ink cartridges cost £43ish!