Cleddau’s Catalogue of G&S Calamities and Unexpected Occurrences

This is a miscellany of recollections from past and recent cruises along the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. (Normal service of recording the ongoing cruise trip will resume in the next post).A photobook on board Cleddau has revealed a surprising truth – that it was 30 years ago in 1994 when boat and crew first ventured down the Severn, through Gloucester Docks and on to Sharpness.Back in those days Cleddau was still her green self with a red roof, one more window than she has now and very few fittings inside. Certainly the possibility of an on-board washing machine was still nearly 15 years away. Why mention that? Well, on an early trip along the Gloucester and Sharpness, Boatwif, frustrated by the accumulation of unwashed “smalls”, had hand washed various essential items and strung and pegged them out on the bow deck. It was a bright and blustery day and the boat was going back towards Gloucester. The Captain at the helm ducked as he feared being taken out by a low-flying white “bird” that rose up from the front of the boat and flew back past him… Did that item sink to the bottom – or worse, foul another boat’s propeller…?Scroll on to 2017. By then an on board washing machine had been Boatwif’s pride and joy for quite some time. See here, Issue 4, for the details of the water pump failure that left the Cleddau crew relying on bottled water for every function for 48 hours.   (What was not noted was Boatwif’s embarrassing experience at the Saul Junction shower block. What a wonderful thing it is, after days of very limited water supply, to have a shower - but a lesson learned is that taking a towel to the shower block should be remembered! Traipsing back to the boat passing a number of visitors on the towpath with wet patches expanding across one’s clothes was not a good look! )Roll forward to 2024, the shower pump saga. Day 1. The shower pump seemed reluctant to empty the shower tray with its usual efficiency. The Captain dug out a congealed mess of soap and hair. Perhaps the outlet pipe was blocked. Would that sort out the problem?  Day 2. The Captain tried rodding the outlet tubes with drain coils from the shower tray to the water exit outside the boat. His efforts were unsuccessful.Day 3. The Captain excavated under the front deck to retrieve a spare new shower pump, tested it, found that it worked - but still wouldn’t pump water out through the outlet hoses.Day 4. With the bathroom side of the boat tied up against the towpath the Captain rodded the outflow pipe from the outside – to no better effect. An ugly but temporary solution was found – the new pump was connected to additional hoses that would pump shower tray water into the bathroom washbasin. “Heath Robinson” comes to mind. This seems to be the status quo until a way of unblocking the downflow pipes can be discovered…  Conversational fragments, entirely unrelated to the above. Sometimes a reply does not come to mind...1 . On a walk at Frampton on Severn Boatwif found herself approaching a stile between two fields. Approaching the stile from the other direction was a young couple, the young man completely barefoot. He crept across the dried-up mud and gritty surface, saying by way of explanation: “The cows ate my shoes.”  A herd of cows was visible some distance away in the field...2. At Gloucester Docks, a lady of mature years had a lot to say: she had spent seven years sailing round the Globe. She talked of resupplying her boat for the Atlantic leg, in the Caribbean, in Venezuela, in New Zealand, of pirate encounters off the Yemen… “Do you iron on board?” she then asked. “I did…”3. There was promise of a lovely sunset on the last evening in Gloucester Docks. Boatwif and the Captain scrambled off the boat to share a dock side bench with a young couple (she an aeronautical engineering graduate from Glasgow, he a civil engineer). Conversation was flowing easily, when a Docks Security Officer interrupted politely; he was required to point out that alcohol was forbidden in the Docks. It was OK to place wine glasses on the boat roof, but not to be holding such items while seated or standing in the Docks.  Miscellaneous 1: A photogenic lion was near the waterpoint at Frampton on Severn. What did it represent? Lion King? King of the Jungle? A reminder of King Charles’s Coronation in 2023…?  Miscellaneous 2: The Rescue – there is currently an additional crew member on board: “he” was rescued from the water as the boat was leaving an overnight mooring near Rea Bridge. "He" is currently in foster care aboard nb Cleddau. Miscellaneous 3:  An email to the Captain from C&RT was a bit of a shock: “Using our previous days' sightings, it looks like your boat may have been moored in the same general area for more than 14 days…”                                 A swift return to C&RT with data showing 11 separate mooring places in the previous 14 days has elicited an apology and a deletion of the overstay claim on the Captain’s account…Stats: no change from the previous post