Pumping out in the rain

8th & 9th December

As feared, the morning was very wet, although the wind nothing like as bad as the day before. We therefore boated to Marple in the rain (as we oft had before, and it’s no, nay, never... sorry, slight attack of the folk songs there.)

The new pump out kit was duly inaugurated, and proved to be as advertised: effective, but slow. It was certainly much easier than the old manual gear, especially as with the mods I’d made to the pipe work, it was quick to assemble, and could be left pumping away without having to hold either the connection to the gunwale outlet or the bit that went in the sluice.

The rain if anything got worse, and threatened to turn to sleet, so we didn’t pursue things to the bitter end, that is rinsing until clear water came out of the tank. Next time, perhaps. It’s noteworthy that the Marple service block is one of the few in the country which actually says “Suitable for self pump out”. Normally, if it doesn’t say you can’t, you assume that you can. It would really help if all service blocks were labelled one way or the other.

There was a space on the visitor mooring opposite the service block, so when we’d finished we pushed across onto it. I stoked the Squirrel with a nice block of wood, and we went shopping, still in the rain, although it was easing all the time.

This had the great advantage that when we staggered back to the boat, it was toasty and warm. The afternoon was spent in our usual high output way – well, Sheila got a lot of knitting done, and I read the paper and did stuff on the laptop. The rain came on again, so it was really very pleasant to be tucked up in the boat.

The weather was much calmer, clear and cold this morning. Just as we thought about watering before setting off, Rainbow arrived from the Waterside Moorings back along the canal and tied on the water point. Heigh ho, we thought, by the time we’ve sorted the mess in the engine ‘ole, put the pump away (I’d left it out to dry) and winded the boat, he’ll be just about finished.

As if. He managed to take an hour and a quarter to fill his tank – it must be huge. Eventually he went off, and we pushed back across onto the water point, filled up and set off back to Poynton.

When we got here, there was just the one space on the Deeps, so we jumped into it. Mata Hari, who was moored just ahead of us, promptly set off. As we were mooring, Vic and Margaret from Cedar, Braidbar 51, stopped for a chat on their way back to their boat, which was tied just beyond where Mata Hari had been.

They tell us they are thinking of selling the boat, so I’ve posted this info on the Braidbar Owners list in case anyone there is interested or knows of someone who is. I’ve got Vic’s phone number to pass onto genuine enquirers, who can email me: bruce(at)nbsanity(dot)net.

This afternoon I had a burst of energy, and washed the anorak that got muddy at St Ives (you can see that energy in the afternoon is quite rare with me...)