10th April

Over the weekend we’ve been compiling a list of snagging jobs and we returned to the boat yard in the morning.

Ricky was in a meeting with some clients but popped out to check on things and have a quick check through our list. Soon we had Kris and Chris/Kev (he’s called Chris but everyone calls him Kev) on board armed with tools. They worked quickly through our list.

With four people on board on Sunday and things now in cupboards and drawers things were opening very easily as the boat moved. Just pushing off from the side would open drawers so Kris fixed a couple of magnetic catches on the top ones. We’ll have to see if this fully holds them in place once we start cruising properly.

Kris fixed a bin that we’d bought at the weekend on the cupboard door under the sink. On our old boat we’ve made do with an Ikea box hung on screws, but this one is far superior. It took him all of a minute to do, rather than an hour by us.

On Sunday morning Mick had had a shower and when it was my turn I noticed that there was a small puddle on the bathroom floor. Mick said he’d already mopped it up, maybe he’d missed a bit. So I did a thorough girl mop and made sure everywhere was dry before I had my shower. The puddle had returned so I mopped it again only for it to come back. Possibly there was a little bit of flex on the shower tray and the sealant hadn’t held. Kris scraped off the old sealant with a wedge of wood. I’d not see this before, but it worked far better than a stanley blade as there was little chance of it marking the shower tray or the doors, just a bit of brute force needed. Then a wider bead of sealant was applied. This will need at least eight hours to go off before either of us has a shower.

We had ordered a barge pole and boat hook through CV Marine at the basin. Of course the hook had come as a pole and a hook separately and the pole needed to be chamfered down to be able to fix the hook on. Kris took this away for us and returned with it all sorted for us.

Meanwhile Chris/Kev got on with problems we were having elsewhere. As we’d been on shore power we’d tried to use the immersion water heater, but it didn’t want to work. A nosy at the calorifier found the problem quickly, the thermostat on it had been turned right down so it wasn’t going to produce any heat. Once turned up we were put on a shore line and the immersion was turned on, after a couple of hours the water was definitely hot.

The freezer under the dinette had power but didn’t want to do anything. The cause was that the voltage had been reversed, easily solved. Although since this was solved we’ve discovered that the cable to the power socket has a tendency to get caught on the back of the drawer runners as you pull it out, this means that the spade connectors get pulled out. A little bit of thought needs to go into solving that one. We also suspect some ventilation holes will be needed to help keep the freezer cool.

The radio was receiving FM but not DAB. With the cricket season having started this would be very important to get solved. Mick didn’t know how to remove the radio from it’s housing so Chris/Kev managed to pull it out and an adaptor was needed to connect the aerial cable. Once one of these was sourced it all worked fine.

I’d spotted a big paint chip down to the steel on the well deck which got touched in with a blob of blue paint. One of our poppered blinds for the bow doors had lost a popper which meant it couldn’t be rolled up, this was redone, a bit like a rivet.The TV aerial had arrived but we were lacking the right connectors for it. Chris said he would pop to Maplins on his way home and get some that we could pick up the following day. We were given a rather nice looking cap for the stove flue, we’ll use this in summer to keep the rain out.

When we’d lit the stove the night before with a small fire we’d had quite a lot of smoke come off it. This is normal as the paint and cement need heat to help them cure. The first few fires should be small ones to help with this, then we can have a bigger fire and keep it in longer. Having checked through the instructions for the stove we’d noticed that we were lacking a riddler (this agitates the grate to remove ash from the fire into the ash box) and poker that should have come with the stove. A call was made to the manufacturers and they would be sent arriving on Wednesday. Ricky would catch up with us to deliver them as we were planning to move off down the Tinsley flight by then.

The gaps under the bathroom doors had on Friday caused me some concern as our cat Tilly had managed to squeeze herself under the door into the cabin from the bathroom. Later on in the day I had checked the height of each door to see if the gaps were the same. Luckily they weren’t, the one to the bedroom was lower, too low for her. I had been toying with asking if it would be possible to put a thin rod across the openings, not reducing the ventilation of them but barring any cat limbo dancing. But with one door capable of being a barrier we should be alright.

Ken and Julia had been in meetings with clients and when they finished they came over to have a look round and meet Tilly. We hadn’t seen Julia since October and I’m not sure she’d seen the interior finished. With all the jobs done Chris came on board with a huge hamper full of goodies for the three of us, yes Tilly had treats and a toy too.

On Tuesday we’ll pick up the adaptors for the TV aerial, Wednesday Ricky will deliver the fire irons and then that just leaves the lithium batteries. Once these arrive Ricky will bring them to meet us and swap them for the AGM batteries and reprogram the invertor. This hopefully will be in a couple of weeks time.

It was certainly worth staying in the basin for a few days getting to use everything and finding any problems as this meant they were a lot easier to solve at the yard rather than the boat being miles away.

Tomorrow we will start our cruise southwards.