Passing the BSC sorted (phew)

10th & 11th December

One thing I forgot from last time – Cala is now out of the paint dock and looking seriously smart. This means that there are presently two brightly painted boats in the yard, Cala and Nocturne.

Yesterday (Monday) we were up in good time and went down to the winding hole, turned round and came back to the mooring we’d just left.

Sheila went off to get bread and the paper whilst I got the boat ready for her Boat Safety Examination. This mainly involved making sure that the gas locker in the bow was tidy and that the lid could be lifted easily. It gets opened so rarely that the hinges tend to gum up, so a quick application of WD 40 was called for.

After Sheila came back from the village and had a coffee she went back to the yard and collected a parcel that had arrived. It contained her Christmas present, in fact, in the shape of a pair of SealSkinz ultra tough gloves. We’ve been using the ordinary SealSkinz gloves, which are not, to be honest, all that they are cracked up to be. They are supposed to be hard wearing, warm and waterproof, but in our experience dipping them in the water results in wet hands, and both our pairs have worn out quite quickly through handling the ropes.

These new ones have an outer layer made from Kevlar, so we’ll see how they go.

Just as we were eating lunch we got the call to say that Mike Carter the boat surveyor had arrived. After we’d finished eating we pulled through the bridge, only to find that both the water point and the shop mooring were occupied, so we tied across the entrance to the yard.

When Mike had finished his own lunch (having examined Cala meantime) he joined us on the boat and took two hours with us. For something as inherently scary as a boat MoT, it was really a very good experience. Mike is very thorough, but he also took the time to chat about the boat, how we were getting on, and dispensed a load of extra advice as he was going round.

For example:

1) It’s a good idea to turn powder fire extinguishers over from time to time. If you listen to the side of the extinguisher as you do so, you’ll either hear the hiss of the powder falling from one end to the other, or a thump as the lump of settled powder does so. By turning them over and giving them a shake, the powder is kept loose and ready for action.
2) Turning the stern greaser down as you boat along is better than turning it down at the end of the day. The grease will be warm, and the motion of the prop shaft encourages the grease to flow along to the out board end of the stern tube, expelling any muck and crud which has got in there.
3) When doing an oil change with the sump pump, the pump will not remove any oil which has sludged or jellied in the bottom of the sump. It’s therefore a good idea from time to time (say every third or fourth change) to unfasten the connection from the pump at the sump end, and leave it over night for the thick stuff to ooze its way out. Mike admitted that this was an awful job, but all modern canal boat engines run under very light load most of the time, and oil sludging is a real problem

I can certainly recommend Mike to anyone looking for a BSC exam in the North West of England.

Whilst all this was going on, Sheila was moving the boat to and fro on the ropes, first onto the shop mooring to get diesel, then back across the yard entrance and then finally onto the water point to fill up. When Mike had pronounced himself satisfied, we set off again, winded at the end of the marina moorings and went on to moor opposite Lyme View marina for the night.

We actually had to use one of the new spaces through the bridge – there’s room for about five boats on the original moorings directly opposite the marina, but three boats had managed to moor so skilfully that they were using the entire length.

Last night was very cold, and it was quite a relief in the morning to see that the cut had not in fact frozen over. We knew (we thought) that we needed to be at Macclesfield today, ready to do the tow tomorrow, Wednesday. In fact it was a glorious boating morning, clear and cold, with cloud occasionally bubbling up and then dispersing again.

We stopped briefly at the dog poo mooring to buy routine stuff at the Co-op just up the road, and then went on past Gurnett Aqueduct to the winding hole beyond, winded and came back to moor on the Aqueduct.

After lunch we cut some wood, and I had a surf on the net looking for optical type smoke detectors, our intention to get one having been reinforced by Mike yesterday. He’d suggested either ScrewFix or B&Q. ScrewFix were out of stock, and B&Q had them, but not for online sale.

Further investigation showed that there’s a B&Q in Macc, about 25 minutes walk from where we are moored. It was only three o’clock, so I set off to get one, leaving Sheila on anchor watch.

Returning flushed with success (and the fact that I’d forgotten I was still wearing thermals from steering in the cold this morning), I was greeted by the news that the tow is not now until Thursday. Our routine email to Braidbar to check the arrangements for tomorrow had made them realise that each of several people thought we’d been told by someone else.

Fortunately this is a 48 hour mooring, so no big problem – it means we can have a lie in tomorrow.