Chapter 2:

The plan was to spend a 2 week holiday in Misty Waters. It had been a stressful few months for both of us, having to deal with difficult situations at work as COVID took hold, a break was what we needed.

We had planned to travel up the river, enjoy a bit of sightseeing in our new purchase, go to Bath, maybe even Bristol. However when we get to the boat, people at the Marina tell us it’s too windy to go anywhere.

When we booked the time off work, I hadn’t given a thought to the fact that the wind could be a problem or that a simple thing such as a bit of wind could scupper our plans completely. After all it’s not like we were going out to sea! Nevertheless, all we could do was stay put at the marina and wait.

Each day we look out of the window and see a skull flag on a neighbouring boat- and watch as it ripples in the wind, like a mirage of our fate. A daily reminder that we aren’t going anywhere. One day passes and then another and another, until one day something is different-.the skull has gone. Instead there is a limp flag, and all is still.  .

Sam is out, she has gone to buy a sofa. During the waiting game Sam searched for a sofa, not being able to cope with sitting on the floor any longer. She finds just what she needs on Market Place- it never takes her long.

Whilst Sam is buying sofas, I go to reception to see whether it might finally be okay for us to get off. Andy is at reception. He, like everyone else we have met, is so helpful. Like there is an unwritten code amongst boaters, a secret society, that you are automatically welcomed into when you become one of them.  A boater said to me once, we call people who don’t live on the water “land people” . Now more than ever I felt like I was entering  the world of the ‘water people’.  An underworld seen by no other, but it’s there.

We are given the go ahead. Feeling more confident and following the change in the wind, we decide to take the plunge and set off, with the new sofa in tow, two women and of course the dog.

As we leave the marina and onto the cut, the same stillness lingers in the air, like the day we arrived, the quiet before the storm? As we “chug chug” along the canal, the light reflects off the water and onto me like it is the alchemy of  bliss itself- and for a moment, I feel it in every part of me. This is what boating is all about I think to myself.

But then..

..with a few clinks and a clunk, the engine comes to an abrupt stop. Sam manages to glide the boat to the side of the bank. We try to start her up, again and again and again, but nothing.

We get on the phone to the guy we brought the boat from- he tells us to check the fuel filters.

I have no idea what a fuel filter is, let alone where I can find it. He thinks we might need to change them.

Luckily we have a bike on board, I am sent on a mission to find fuel filters, as Sam phones round places trying to find the exact ones we need. I bike to the first place, as it starts to rain. But I am lost and don’t know where to go, and by the time I get to where I need to go I am tired and upset.

The woman in the shop feels sorry for me and gives me a free boat fire safety pack; great I think, a reminder of what else can go wrong! Sam takes the athletes torch, and bikes to the second place, getting the car on the way, as I take the dog and head back to the boat. We have to save Misty Waters.

Within minutes of getting the filters, we are in the engine room, her body now exposed. The guy is going to talk us through what he wants us to do. We have him on video phone as he guides us to the filters, as we have to unscrew this and turn that. 

We have to pump the filters like we are pumping a heart as her diesel drips all over us. I feel like a lay person asked to do open heart surgery. Sam’s adrenaline runs through her as she is determined to bring Misty Waters back to life. But nothing.

He agrees to come down and fix her. But it is going to take a few days for him to get to us. All we can do is wait. This wasn’t supposed to happen. After 20 minutes up the river our 2 week break is over, we are going nowhere.

And then came the water:

You could say if we had not had the engine problem (or challenge as Sam likes to call it) we would not have discovered the next problem / sorry challenge. When we are seeing to Misty’s engine I look down through the cracks in the floorboards, I can see something shining below- its water. We look further into the belly of the boat and discover more and more water.  “Where is it coming from” I say to Sam, exasperated. There are a few ways water can get into a boat, we put it there, or its made its way in from the outside.

Sam checks the shower pump and discovers that it is broken- 5 days worth of showers that we thought had left the boat had not, and was in fact still very much with us! So the next trip out was to buy a new shower pump, along with something to get the water out.

Once again, my arms are caked in fuel and water as I delve into the under belly of Misty Waters to mop up what I can. Sam fits the shower pump first which  brings us both joy as we see the water pumping out of the boat and where it should be.

*

“There’s a hole in my boat,  dear Sam dear Sam, .there’s a hole in my boat a hole..”

Exhausted after the day, we go to bed early, (our first night on the cut) only to be woken up in the early hours of the morning. Our duvet is sopping wet. I wake Sam up. I feel like a child telling her I’ve wet the bed. “Sam, the bed’s wet ..”  “I know she says” and we both fall back to sleep. Neither of us have the energy to do anything about it. When we wake in the morning the bed is dry.  “See, don’t worry, it was just a little leak, it’s ok now, ” Sam says”. Or is it just that the rain has stopped for a minute ?” I say.

The next night, the rain comes again, and with it more water that should not be there. This time we get up, and place buckets on the bed where once we lay, and stagger into the living room. Onto our newly bought sofa bed and fall asleep. 

Again to the sounds of dripping, as the water finds its new home in the carefully placed buckets.

Tired, we head home the next day for a hot shower and to get some tools to fix the leak/s, only to find another leak. This time it is in the house, as we shower we find the water is dripping through the kitchen ceiling. Surely this can’t be happening.“ When it rains, it pours” I say to Sam, and we both laugh.

Despite the added issue of a leak in the house, and the boat, we return from our shower and back to the boat more energised. We are prepared and armed with tools. We are going to sort this out. We have a tube of CT1 (which apparently even sticks two bricks together under water- so what’s a small leak!) some bin bags, and a simple but effective device to get the water out of the boat.

That night the rain comes again, but the drips stop, We have cracked it. 

Whilst we wait for the guy to come and fix her engine, we make trips out to get water, finding that water is not an easy thing to carry on a bike, and people come to visit the stranded travellers. 

Misty holds on, it has been a few days since we have been plugged into the mains- and slowly her lights start to dim. The man arrives just in time with a part for her. It turns out it was a broken spring in the injectors- and he has had to send off for a replacement part. He spends a good few hours working on her, but his efforts pay off, and she comes back to life. Misty Waters is back.

The Chinese see the number 3 as lucky, it means to be alive..Others regard the saying as the number of things that go wrong. We could say that by the third issue, we are lucky because there are no more problems! Although for us that wasn’t the case.. Things just kept coming..

Maybe this is what life is all about, maybe that is what it means to be alive. Maybe being alive is how we cope with the challenges that life throws at us, and how we learn from them. We may not have had the break we needed, we may have not drifted the canals, but at least we felt what it was to be alive…..

Meet Blue:

Blue is a short head German pointer cross. Blue’s father was Finlay a short haired German Pointer and was named after his grandfather and kennel club registered, Samson Blue.

His mum (Mika) on the other hand was a cross between a Dogue de Bordeaux, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, a Rottweiler and a Labrador, (or you could say a dogue de rottodor!) So add all those to the mix and you get Blue!

There is a story to Blue’s creation. Sadly Sam’s beloved dog Finlay got cancer. He had chemotherapy but did not survive.

During Finlay’s treatment Mika came into season. Sam contacted the vet and was told that she did not need to separate them, because Finlay would be completely sterile due to the chemotherapy. Finlay died in December. On the day they went to pick up Finlay’s ashes from the vet, they also noticed that Mika’s boobs were swollen.

The vet insisted it was just signs of a phantom pregnancy. Sam asked for a scan anyway, only to discover that Mika was in fact pregnant. Not only was she pregnant, she was pregnant with 9 puppies! Finlay had left a legacy. Part of his legacy was Blue.

Blue grew up with and lived with his mother Mika and his brother Bear -who lived up to his name at 46 kilos (Blue is 35!). They lived next to some woods, and enjoyed a large space to run around.

I met Blue when he was 5 – he barked at me with his big roar, that often scares people, to let me know not to come near. To let me know that actually he was as anxious as me.

I quickly came to know and love Blue for the beautiful  dog he is. He does all the cute things that dogs do, tilts his head when you say, “do you want to….?” If it is possible for a dog to smile, he certainly does. If he could cuddle you, he would. I don’t know a more loyal or loving dog. He thinks he is a lap dog, and tries to sit on your lap, which means he has no idea quite how big he is. See below to meet Blue.