I went to the Malt Shovel pub last night for a meal (calves liver and bacon is good) and at closing time walked back to the boat. Walking along the boat to bed I put my bare foot down on soggy carpet. Investigating I found the bilge full to the brim with water.
Panic! Man the lifeboats! Cowards and non-swimmers first…
No cause for alarm. Found the cause easily enough. A pipe was disconnected and the contents of the water holding tank were fast pouring out inside the boat. A water pump vibrates in use and the pipe must have worked itself loose when I’d had a shower earlier. Fixing it was simply a case of twisting two bits of plastic tight together – the difficult bit was lying on the floor, contorting my body to reach inside a small hatch under the shower, shining in a torch and… you really need to be a multi-armed, see-in-the-dark midget to do this stuff.
I tried emptying the water using a mug, then a cake tin, then a huge sponge. It took hours. I’ve had the central heating on full at night, all the windows open all day trying to dry out the bilge.
Still it could have been much worse.
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