The exciting ocean voyage

OK, maybe it wasn't quite like that but after two months without moving the boat, any trip felt like an ocean voyage.

We had used quite a lot of diesel for winter heating (as it had continued cold and windy for a long while) plus genset use. With the lockdown, we are also using the little Webasto boiler for hot water for showers too. So, the decision was to get some fuel as a top up.

Getting ready to do that was harder than preparation for some of our sea trips. Why? Well, the boat has been a houseboat for ages with things strewn everywhere. The half fender was covering the main engine dry exhaust pipe to stop rain running into it and the ropes had not been untied for ages and were well and truly "set". Oh, we also hadn't run the main engine since a gearbox oil change and fuel filter swap.

We consulted our charts, the marine weather forecast, fired up all the electronics and prepared to depart for the 350 metre trip. We even fired up the AIS to get the folks who stalk us excited:

Still, the boat did manage to claw itself out of the weed. It was strangely exciting. Yes, we are getting lockdown fever......

For those who like numbers, we put in just under 3100 litres and some fuel stabiliser to keep it fresh too. At our current burn rate that will keep us going with heating and generator for a while. Luckily the oil price has dropped and the marina had a delivery just before the lockdown so the price was OK too. Somehow doubt that we will make it to Guernsey this summer for the ritual top up there. They say that people are putting on weight during the lockdown. Well, we managed to add about 2,700 Kg in an hour or so. Might need to go clothes shopping.

Patrick the penguin has been strangely and worryingly quiet recently. You will notice how he hasn't starred in any blog posts for a while. Then he seemed to get into the lockdown email / Whatsapp round of sending people jokes or videos or messages of hope. He is a bit of a worry though, he sent us this:

We keep a large, heavy adjustable spanner by the bed in case they come for us. Not going quietly.

Still locked in - in all meanings of the word

Totally locked down indeed. Government rules stop you from going out and the locks in the barrage are closed too. Properly locked down. What to do? There is, as always, loads of boat polishing to do especially as most of the superstructure got ignored last year. So, we did some enjoying the amazingly good weather but not the work involved. Still, the red wine helped the sore shoulders.

What else? The marina wildlife seem to be enjoying the lack of boat movements and people disturbing them. At the end of our hammerhead we have a resident duck and cormorant / shag who seem to alternate occupancy of the same spot. By the way, being definitive on the cormorant / shag question could cause a flurry of comments to this post telling us we are wrong, so we are leaving both options open.

The marina swans are back to their usual nesting spot and during parent change over time we spotted 6 eggs being kept warm. Thanks to the lockdown we might be around to see them hatch this year:

The "non sitting" swan is patrolling any occupied boats for food and is very busy chasing off any intruders:

Luckily he was after food when he visited us, chasing off many tons of Nordhavn would be quite a challenge.

The polishing activity needed us to stock up on some 3M compound and of course all the chandlery places are shut. Not classed as essential for some strange reason and so we had to get some delivered instead. The Parcelforce man unlike any of the other delivery guys could not manage to ring the bell for the marina office man to come down to accept his parcel. Instead he stuffed a note through the door and we had to collect it from the local Post Office. Just what you want in virus infested times. Even better was the game in the luckily empty Post Office:

Cashier: what sort of parcel is it?
Us: It will be a box, about this tall, so wide and weighing about 1Kg if that helps.

The cashier returned with a jiffy bag style package which felt strangely soft and certainly didn't have a bottle in it.  When opened we found that our 3M bottle, as shown on the packing slip, had morphed quite amazingly into:

No idea what we will do with the monster bag of elastic bands or how long we will wait for Zorro (who are normally good) to respond to the complaint and ship us what we paid for. If anyone has an urgent need for size 10 bands (perhaps the packaging guys at the Zorro warehouse?) please let us know. We can help you out.

Still, we got on using the materials we had in stock, with the odd cockpit break to enjoy the sun and rest the aching shoulders:

We kept in touch with many folks including other Nordhavn owners like Andrew and Linda (Zephyros, N43 who have starred in here many many times), Alex and Gisele (Grey Lady, N55, again been featured here before) by videoconference to share a G and T (or two). Standards have to be maintained you know.  We feel lucky to be aboard as Alex is stuck in Belgium with his "new to him" boat in Eastbourne. Michael and Olive (Coracle, N40) are also separated from their boat. Andrew can cycle down the rather steep hill from his house to see his though. Good job he has an ebike to help on the way back up.

When you have loads of time on your hands you ponder on many things like "should we replace our main Webasto 12Kw heating boiler as it has done many many hours and is now 13 years old and that model has just been discontinued". Question is, should we fit a new to the market Webasto replacement before all the snags are ironed out? As you can see, some of these musings sound expensive. Think we need to work harder on the polishing.

We have a DBW2010 very agricultural but so far very reliable boiler:

It is a bit like Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous. It drinks a bit, smokes a bit, makes more noise than it ought but keeps going. The new high tech replacement is:

Just get all those plug connections for the fancy electronic controls. Yes, decisions, decisions. Maybe the lockdown will mean that we just have to stick with what we have and the captain will give it a decoke as a treat.

In lockdown so might as well do some "boat stuff"

With the UK on official Coronavirus lockdown, we were allowed to go to the shops for food or medicine and for one "exercise activity" each day. The marina was forced to close, the showers and other facilities locked. Not a huge issue for us, the "facilities" on board are just fine thank you.

We can make hot water thanks to either the immersion heater (big electricity bill at marina rates!) or using our little Webasto water heater:

which runs a couple of fans in the heads to warm those up and has a loop through the calorifier for hot water thanks to the new twin coil hot water tank that was installed last winter. Boy, are we glad we did that! The unit has been busy most days and sips diesel anyway.

A few bits of routine work were completed too - oil and filter change for the wing engine and replacement of the drinking water filter cartridge. That could not be straight forward either this year. After emptying the huge cupboard that it is hidden in and removing the shelf to get decent access we saw that the unit had come away for the mounting and was just sitting on the pipework underneath. Removing the old cartridge prompted the flexible outlet pipe to weep for some reason so that had to come off, have a PTFE tape treat and then be refitted. Still, we have a fresh filter and nice sparkly clean water again:

Was there any fun as well during lockdown time? We had the fun of walking the two fluffy white dogs (Pip and Poppy) most days too during our allowed exercise time. They seemed unaware of the social separation thing as they still rushed up to most folks wanting cuddles and attention.

What else? The mad captain ordered some new polishing / cutting pads for our Rupes polisher so that once the weather improves / warms up, we can polish the seriously neglected topsides. The mad crew cleaned out the galley cupboards and a decision was taken on #waterpumpgate.

If you read our earlier info you will know that our nice Marco pump had a failed seal and it had drowned the motor assembly. So, we were using the other fresh water pump - an elderly Jabsco instead. We managed to source a new replacement and the captain had fitted it:

only it refused to prime.... that was such good news. Having worked out how the two pumps and the associated pipework and changeover valves could be relocated a couple of feet downwards to reduce the head of water, it was put into the "too hard when all the places that sell plumbing fittings of this size are shut" category. Instead we got yet another new pump, this time another Jabsco unit, the new version of the old one that was still being used. This handles the head of water better than the nice gear driven Marco pump. Idea being to fit it in the same spot and use it. Then, when places re-open and we have the time and inclination, we will relocate the pumps lower down, using the new Jabsco and new Marco and retiring the old tired one that was providing water for us at present.

Pump was ordered, managed to arrive in three days (wow - Marinescene in Bridgend are really good folks!) and then the fitting fun was upon us. Of course, the new pump has a different mounting plate that was bigger than the pad we had fitted onto the bulkhead. It also had different spacing of the inlet and outlet ports. Still, after a fair bit of surgery we now have this:

as the main pump. The Marco is back in its little Italian box until we go mad and relocate everything and our elderly Jabsco pump gets a rest again. See, lockdown can be so much fun!