Window Cleaning...

My friend Alex and I spent Saturday cleaning out the starboard window frames and re-sealing them with silicon sealant. Hopefully we will have fixed the leaks! Thanks for your help Alex!

Maidenhead to Windsor on my own!

Cowle's festival fireworks on a 72' Global Challenge Yacht

This evening I was invited by my company (SpinVox to join some of the rest of the team on a Global Challenge yacht for a corporate entertainment evening. Which involved cruising out into the solent from Southampton over to Cowles on the Isle of Wight.

This was in time for the final evening of the Cowle's festival and the fireworks display, there were hundreds of boats in the water ranging from large Yachts, to huge gin palaces ( expensive plastic boats )

Here are a few photos I took of the evening:

Henley down to Maidenhead

We woke up this morning to find it was raining, and not just a light shower, proper rain :(

After deliberating for an hour whether to go or not, I decided to get up and start our journey towards Maidenhead. Yvonne stayed in bed, so I single handedly turned Sirius around, and headed along the Henley Regatta stretch, with an unbrella in one hand, and the rudder in the other.

Yvonne decided to get up just before the second lock, and arrived with a nice hot cup of tea, just what I needed as it was cold and horrible outside.

It rained most of the day, until the late afternoon when eventually the rain stopped and the cloud started showing signs of clearing as we were going past Cliveden Woodland and Gardens and Cliveden House

Reading to Henley

Today was a glorious sunny day, it's day's like this that make having a boat worth while. Yvonne and I took Sirius from Kings meddow in Reading down the Thames to Henley on Thames.

We moored the night along the edge of the park, it said on a sign that it cost £8 per night for mooring, but no one came and asked us for any money (the last time I stayed there, for the regatta, they swooped as soon as we had the first rope ashore!)

I cooked some pork fillets, and a risotto, which was very nice, although I say so myself :)

We saw a hot air balloon fly over, and then sat with candlelight watching the sky fill with stars, after which we went to bed, intending to get an early start.

No photos today! opps...

My thirtieth Birthday !

Today was my birthday! OMG.. the start of my 30's !

This weekend has been a weekend of parties; a BBQ at my friend Alex's house on Friday night for his 40th Birthday, a joint Jive party to celebrate both Alex's 40th and my 30th last night, and finally today to finish off the weekend another BBQ at my house.

To top it all, and make it oh so relevant for my blog, check out my cake given to me by Yvonne!!

Dancing Bear and Sirius Meet at last!

My friend Roxy owns a narrowboat called "Dancing Bear". Roxy is off on travels around the UK for 3 / 4 months, lucky girl! As she was going through Pangbourne she spotted Sirius and decided to moor next to her :)

After a few phone calls, Roxy, her friend Mark?!, Maggie and I all met up and had a squash curry made by Roxy, thanks Roxy!

We spent the next few hours just sitting watching the sun set and chatting about all sorts, this is what having a boat is all about, true relaxing with friends.

Pangbourne to Goring with Paula and Mark

Today Paula, Mark, Yvonne and I all went for a trip along the Thames to Goring. We were aiming for the Catherine Wheel pub, but we must have missed it, as we ended up going to the Queens Arms pub near the railway station. It was a glorious day, we spotted a novel means of sailing, and I think Mark spotting was the best, he spotted a turtle (terrapin?) sitting on a log on the edge of the river, a photo is below :)

Tesco's to Pangbourne

Today with Yvonne we travelled from Tesco's in Reading along to Pangbourne. We fuelled up at "Better Boats" in Reading, 80 litres at 42p a litre! After travelling through Caversham, past Caversham Island (Pictured, I think) I dropped Yvonne off in Tilehurst to go and pick up her car, I continued alone through Mapledurham Lock, and had hoped to moor just the other side.

Not a chance.. there seems to be very little decent mooring space at Mapledurham, so I soldiered on to Pangbourne, where I was lucky enough to find a very friendly couple on a dutch barge called "Becky" a great looking boat I must say. They let me tie along side to them for the evening, thanks folks!

Henley Regatta

My friend John Peachey and I took Sirius along the Thames from the back of Reading Tesco's to Henley, we left Reading at about midday, and arrived in Henley at about 3:30pm, I don't think I have ever seen Henley so busy (I have been to the Regatta three times before on foot)

There were boats just about everywhere! It was amazing that there were no major boat collisions (at least, none that I saw) we cruised along the mile and a bit course to Temple Island, and then turned around to do the stretch again before searching for somewhere to moor.

In both directions we were nose to tail with other boats, probably with about 30 foot between us, considering Sirius is 70' look, 30' seem's like a short distance to me, especially as we don't have ABS on a Narrowboat ;-)

On the return leg we were called apon to give a lift to a couple of local girls and their younger brother (I'm guessing) we dropped them off by one of the enclosures to the delight of the ladies and gents, but not to the delight of the security guard, who tried to tell them they could not come through, of course, he didn't really have a choice after I pulled away ;-)

We then went under Henley bridge and were faced with the dilema of where to moor?! We looked for another 70'er to moor against, but none were in sight. Then, luckily we found a 40' space, with another boat at the end of it who shouted across and said they were just leaving, what a stroke of luck!

After mooring, we helped a couple of other boats moor front and back of us, then settled down to have a couple of glasses of wine with the crew of the boat in front (sorry folks forgot the name of your boat!)

The rest of the evening lead to copious amounts of budwiser to be drunk in, none other than the "Budwiser bar", which for those who don't know henley, is a large marquee sponsored by Bud.

Marine windows

I just met Paul from Marine Windows, he had a look at my leaky old windows, and rather than suggesting replacing them, he suggested just changing the seals, and filling a few joints with silicon.

If anyone needs window work done on their boat his contact details are:

Paul Hughes
The Boat Yard
Mill Green
Caversham
Reading
RG4 8EX
Tel: 01189482664
Mobile: 07836250219

It says on his card they are:
"Manufacturers of windows, windscreens - hatches

All types of Vehicle windows repaired and replacement service

Diving service available"

The Remorseful day

As my boat was broken into a couple of weeks ago, I remembered someone warning me to look out for a character called Finch who was a serial narrowboat burglar. I just found the following site with info about his history which some of you might be interested in reading.

The things stolen from my boat were alcohol, a can of ravioli, and a pillow case, apart from that I think everything else remains.

The Remorseful day

Newark-on-Trent to Gunthorpe

Yvonne re-joined me for this part of the trip,

Leaving Sirius for Christmas with my relatives.

My mum and I moved Sirius from the British Waterway's mooring in the centre of Newark to the new King's Marina. They had space for us to moor for a couple of days over Christmas Day / Boxing day, as we were going to spend Christmas with my family. Before we left I thought I had a problem with the bilge pump.. (the things you learn about your boat as a newbie!)

I have two pumps, one was working and the other (I thought) was pumping water into the Bilge to clean it out.. so I went and found a chaldery open on Christmas eve, they were just having their Christmas Party, but I was still able to buy a new bilge pump and piping.

When I got back to Sirius and started trying to fit it, I suddenly realised that the pump I thought was used to bring water into the bilge, was infact meant to pump it out, it had just come un-attached, and hence was circulating the water! So, as soon as I re-attached it, we must have pumped out gallons of water! You live and learn as they say.

Dunham Toll Bridge to Newark-on-Trent

Well, after Yesterday's experience we had planned to get up and leave early this morning, but, it was blowing an absolute gale, and we were not sure if we were going to be able to navigate at all. We decide to wait a bit and see if the wind calmed down, which by 10am it had a little, so we set off, being very wary of the corner around Dunham Dubs!

We called ahead to Cromwell Lock, and by the time we got there they had prepared the lock for us to go straight in. It felt good to finally be on non-tidal river at last!

Another day with not many photos being taken, but I did take a couple of photos in Newark about 20 minutes after we had moored up (6pm), as you can see, it was dark, and we had decorated her with some red Christmas lights :)

Torksey to Dunham Dubs...

Now, the plan for today was to get from Torksey to Cromwell Lock, but, unfortunately luck was not on our side. It was just my mum and I travelling as Yvonne had gone back home yesterday evening. We set off at 9am, on another cold winters morning, by about 9:30am we had reached Dunham Dubs, which is a sort of S bend in the river.

We were chatting away, and both noticed what we thought was a duck bobbing in the water.. as we drew close we realised it was a bit of wood, so I steered to avoid it, and as I did so, we ran aground. As we were going against the flow of the river, we were pushing quite hard, and hence managed to get ourselves well and truly wedged on the inside corner of the bend.

After a few failed attempts to reverse off, we called British Waterways to ask their advice. A very friendly BW person drove down to check we were ok, and not likely to tip over as the tide went out. He said he thought it would be fine, and luckily, he was right.

So we just had to sit it out, for some strange reason, although we had nothing to do for the whole day, I didn't take a single phone on that day, so I have no photographs of actually being stuck!

Eventually at 5:30pm the tide had come back up enough for us to reverse off, and turn around so we could go back and moor at Dunham Toll Bridge.

One side effect of a 70' narrowboat getting stuck on the bottom of a tidal river is that as the tide went out, because we were only stuck at the front, the back of the boat sunk lower, and she twisted slightly! Various signs of this, were things like the only door in the middle of the boat not closing.. and some of the floor boards have popped up in the middle.

Gainsborough to Torksey

We had thought about setting off at about 2:30am as the tide rose, but I woke up at 2am to find there was a thick fog outside, so I decided to go back to sleep. We woke up at about 9am to the sound of a pile driver thumping foundation piles into the ground. The sun is shining, but there was a cold frost last night, so the top of Sirius is frosty. My mum bought a few bits from the local shops, then we all ate some porridge, which helped warm us all up!

The journey to Torksey went well, there are lots of power stations on route, which I told quite a few photos of, you will see one below.

And we are off !

My Mum, Yvonne & I arrived in Goole at about 3pm on Sunday, and spent the afternoon getting settled in. We decorated one side of Sirius with some Christmas lights, and will do the other side when we can reach it safely :)

In the evening we went to the local marina club house and had a quick drink before all going to bed.

On Monday we spent the morning fueling up, buying coal for the stoves etc, and then at about 12:30 the gravel barge Galdys Lillian can along side us, we tide onto the side of them, and then started our journey :)


They towed us at about 10 knots, probably the fastest Sirius has ever gone :)

The plan had been to get to Torksey Lock, but unfortunately they had a message from the quary to say that the conveyorbelt had broken, and so they decided to take as as far as Kidby, we reached there at about 16:10, so it was already getting dark.

We then carried on under our own steam, albeit too fast for the engine, and we overheated, and the engine cut out in the middle of the river, with the tide flowing out we quickly started to drift backwards out of control!! Panic stations!! Anchor! After a few tense minutes the Anchor had turned us facing up stream and dragged us onto the river bank.

We waited 15 minutes and then restarted the engine, after a few minutes we managed to pull the back end away from the bank, and pull the front end off, we were away again, but this time, a little slower!

We then kept going until the first morning we could find, which turned out to be many hours later in Gainsborough, infact it was 23:30 when we arrived, so by then we had got very used to navigating in the dark with the moon light!

We are now going to wait until about midday before setting off again, the tide should turn at about 3pm, and then for 2 hours we will be going with the tide, so we should go a lot further today, fingers crossed!

Sirius will soon be on her way down to Reading

Well, it's been a while since I have had any news worth posting on here. Sirius is now ready to be moved, she has had a lot of work done on her, and will now look like a different boat from the outside, I will try and upload some photos next week!

I am intending to paint Sirius in a dark red colour, she has been fully stripped down and has had a couple of coats of undercoat, which I have not yet seen, but I have been told she currently looks rather pink!

I am going to be bringing her down from Goole to Leicester next week starting on Monday, weather / tides etc permitting, so if anyone see's a 70' pink boat on that stretch, give me a wave :)

The Rudder has been repaired.

This weekend I went up to stay on Sirius for the first time, and Yvonne came too, also to stay, and to see Sirius for the first time! While we were there we saw the rudder that Alan Pease had repaired for me.

A before and after photo can be seen below: