Sunny Sunday Boatwork

We've been quite busy today, but first I should mention the party we went to on Friday night.I would have talked about it yesterday, but a certain S(c)allywag took over the keyboard then…

/wahaha

Anyway, the party was everything we hoped, and a good example of why this is such a nice marina to moor in. The party food had been provided by The Management (actually Robert and Lucy, not Hale and Pace), and drink was available to buy from the Still Waters shop. We met some old friends and made some new ones, and didn't get away until quite late, so a result all round.

The next marina social event will be the Firework Display on 3rd November; we're having a pontoon party at the same time, officially a delayed Hallowe'en do for which we've just had an invitation. It's all go, I tell you.

Back to today: it being a very fine day (serious frost last night), we took the opportunity to turn everything out of the well deck and the upper bow locker. Then I opened up the lower bow locker, and we put a lot of summer stuff away down there, like the folding chairs and the plant troughs.

Since the flue brush also lives down below, I got it out and gave the flue a good sweeping. Naturally, this meant partly dismantling stuff in the Squirrel fire box, so it got a good clean out as well. I took the opportunity to remove the smoke deflector plate from the mouth of the flue. This is not the main baffle that makes sure that the smoke heats up the top of the stove, but an extra plate right in the mouth of the  flue.

The Squirrel we had on Sanity didn't have one, and a thread on the subject on CanalWorld revealed that it's only there because the Norwegians reckon it improves the performance of the stove by 1% would you believe. The advice from Morsø UK is to remove it from stoves fitted in boats, as the flue is so much shorter than the recommended 4.5 metres in a domestic installation.

Must say, the fire is burning better for having taken it out, especially just after refuelling. There's more advice on the subject in the CWDF thread.

Having got everything put away again, we stopped for lunch, but afterwards turned to and inverted the cratch cover over the cratch frame and cleaned the inside with vinyl cleaner; Sheila did  most of this, and it looks a lot better for it.

We then took another well deserved break whilst a rain shower passed over, after which we had a walk round the marina. This gave us a chance for a natter with Ian and Alison off Nobby; they've had a summer stuck in the marina repainting Nobby in between the rain storms.

Since then it's been a case of loafing gently in the boat; it's my birthday next week, and I've had an early call from sister Jane in the States. Another chance to catch up; apparently the weather is quite pleasant in Brooklyn too...