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| On to the Tidal Trent |
This years journey has covered 722miles, 348 locks and 105 swing or lift bridges. We have travelled on 16 different canals and 3 rivers including the tidal River Trent.
But now our adventures for this year are over, and we return to the peace and quiet of the wharf for the winter. So I thought I would write a blog about all the questions we get asked about living on a boat.
I will start with the most frequent;
Doesn’t it get cold in the winter?
Well it does but so do houses, its a matter on managing the fire and keeping the core temperature of the boat up. We keep our fire in 24/7 during the colder months, burning mainly coal rather than wood. We also layer up, although at times we have to strip off if the fire is blazing. We have a stove fan which circulates the warm air through out the boat. We have a winter duvet and an electric blanket to take off the evening chill. Also as the lower part of the boat is below the waterline and the water is actually warmer than the air above we keep toasty. To answer the question is the boat cold in the winter, no its not.
Post?
Another frequent question is about our post. There are a number of solutions boaters use to access their post, we use my sisters address for ours. Others use PO boxes or organise to collect mail from a local post office or sorting office. There is always a solution.
Doctors and medicine?
Same with accessing a doctor or getting a prescription. The Captain has a regular prescription, and whilst we are out he can order it from a local pharmacist on line and pick it up. If we need to see a doctor (hopefully never) we can visit a walk in centre, or just go to a local surgery and sign on as an emergency patient.
Internet?
When we first had the boat mobile wifi was in its infancy and we could only get 20gb. Things have changed a lot in 11yrs, and now we have unlimited internet, and we are able to stream TV, use the laptop and phones. Sometimes if the signal is not very good because of the area we are in, we use the Captains phone as a hot spot, as he is on a different network from our main WiFi. It is handy to have 2 networks to choose from for this reason.
TV?
As I have explained in the paragraph above, we have enough internet now to stream, but we also have a satellite dish, which the Captain has set up at the right angle for the signal, and the dish is fitted so it can be turned to find the right satellite, and hey presto we have digital TV. The digibox can also record programmes, and we also have an aerial which means we can pick up normal TV. So all bases are covered. Again there are other solutions used by boaters but this works for us.
Power?
A very important part of boating, and again it has come on leaps and bounds in the last 11yrs. Our set up originally was 2* 250W solar panels and 4 leisure batteries and a starter battery (all lead acid). It was OK and meant we could run our 12v fridge 24/7 (some boaters turn theirs off at night to conserve power) but things like an electric kettle, air fryer and freezer were a no go. All our lights and pumps are 12v, but the TV and chargers are 240v. To use these we needed to run our inverter which converts 12v to 240v, but uses power to do it. We always turned our inverter off at night. But with our new set up of 3*410W solar panels, 2*200Ah lithium batteries and a starter battery, we can run all the above, and leave the inverter on all the time. I won’t try to explain how they work differently to lead acid batteries, but they basically hold charge better, can be discharged more, charge quicker and last a lot longer, a very simple explanation. The engine also charges the batteries, so moving every day keeps them topped up nicely. If power gets a little low and we are not moving that day, we will simply run the engine to top them up.
Shopping?
After so long travelling the canals we have an encyclopedic knowledge of the shops in most areas, and know were I can do a big shop or just were to pick up a few bits. It does help that I keep a lot of spares in, so extra tins of things I use a lot. Spare jars of pickles and sauces. Plenty of pasta, rice and noodles. And nowhaving the freezer means I can now keep a selection of meat, fish and bread. Before the freezer I just had the little ice box in the fridge, but you would be amazed how much stuff I could get in there. I also find that by cooking meat it will last longer. Fresh fruit and veg are a little more challenging, and I sometimes find I have things to use up rather than throw away. But there is always a recipe for that.
Onto a favourite topic of boaters, toilets?
There are up to 4 types of toilets on boats. The 2 most popular being the cassette toilet, like you find in a caravan, or a pump out toilet, which is what we have. The cassette toilets have to be emptied at elsans which are dotted a round the system and maintained by CRT, these are free. Most boaters who travel a lot tend to have 2 or 3 cassettes so they always have a spare. A pump out or drop through toilet requires, as the name suggests a pump to empty it. The waste is held in a tank below the toilet and is pumped through a pipe usually accessed on the roof or side of the boat. This we have to pay for, there are CRT machines or we go into a marina and pay them to do it. Average cost is £20. Our tank isn’t very big and needs pumping out every 14/16 days.
Water?
Our water is held in a tank at the front of the boat and needs filling up every 5/6 days. There are water points all over the system. A diaphragm pump is used to pump the water around the boat, and the system is kept pressurised by using an accumulator. So if, when you are on our boat you hear a pump going off, its just the accumulator pressurising the system.
The dirty water goes into the canal. We have a full sized shower and this is emptied by using a gulper pump, as the shower sits lower than the drain hole in the side of the boat.
Rubbish
Again this is one of the services CRT provides along the canals, which we pay for with our license. Unfortunately there is a lack of recycling, and even though I keep packaging and the like separate from food waste, they usually end up in the same bin. There is at some compounds a bottle bin for glass and I use this when it is available.
Safety?
Boats are inherently less safe than being in a house. But in 10yrs we have never had a problem with anyone trying to break in or damage the boat. However we would never leave the boat empty overnight on the side of the canal, we would put it in a marina for peace of mind. We have a good padlock on the back doors, the side hatch is always secured, and we close the curtains to stop people from looking in and seeing the boat is empty. As a sign of the time we fitted a lock to our fuel tank last year. There is also the danger of sinking, we don’t like to think about this but it does happen.
That’s it for now but if there are any other questions you would like answering, then ask away.
