OCTOBER STORM

The whole month of October appears to have gone by in a flash.  The chains were undone at Radford bottom lock and one morning I asked myself do I need to be here, here being the towpath with my linear garden and the answer being No! I proceeded forthwith to The Fusiliers and thence to Radford where I cleaned out the boat's debris, launched myself through the lock and just kept going.  Halfway up I rested overnight and completed the remainder of the climb with a lock-keeper the following day opening gates ahead and closing them behind to tie up at The Boat Inn and overnight.

It takes 45minutes cruise from The Boat Inn to the bottom of Calcutt Three Locks so I decided to make that my next stop over having been advised that the gates would be  unlocked at 10am.  I had established on arrival the that the gate was not actually locked.  At 8.30am a northbound boater told me the top gate was also unlocked so we agreed to swap places and so at about 9.30am I found myself well under way and later exited Napton Junction onto the Oxford where I pulled in for breakfast before moving on in foul weatrher and with fould wetaher gear on.  But the weather was closing in on that very tedious bit of canal after three months without a drop of rain and the wind was rising as I cruised along.  Eventually I asked myself whether I needed to be fighting wind and rain and pulled over to stay overnight in sight of Flecknoe Hill.

The following morning I was away with first light and pinned to the bank by B93 about 9oc and met a boater who would be pulling away from B90 'within the hour' which he did and I retrieved my happy spot to put down roots for the interim. 

The navigation was still officially closed and would be til at earliest 10thOctober so I was able to work on the boats electrics and talk to Paul Redshaw about the exhaust problem that was worrying me and make a provisional date to talk with him for Dec1.  However C&RT send a move note which I got on Friday 7th and with my work finished at Braunston anyway I decided to up sticks over that w/e and proceed to Three Bridges where I arrived on Saturday after a pleasant overnight just north of Bridge 85 where I have dallied before more than once. 

The daily weather was now getting progressively worse with heavy overnight rains filling the bilges so the chore of deleafing and empting water and crud was essential and was done. The almost total lack of proper sunlight meant I could not usefully develop the onboard electrics so I decided to bale out and see what was happening at the flat. I had prebooked a cheap train ticket Nuneaton to Peterborough and knew I could connect from Rugby to Nuneaton via an 84 bus which I did and thus arrived 'home' on Wed12thNov/16.20 to settle in and prepare for my Thursday laundry slot.  During the evening I was delighted to have long conversations with Steve and Rosie and Thomas the mariner til very late.  I eventually went to bed at midinight and slept throug til "8oc" waking a bit confused at the time before realising my clocks were still on New Time ... 

I have been so busy over the past weeks trying to sort out the onboard electrics so I can be assured of voltage for my USBs and power banks ,,, the batteries are weak and settle at 12.3 overnight. This in itself is not a huge problem from the lighting perspective but it is and always has been an issue for assuring line voltage will STAY above 12.5V when a load is applied. 

After four months of unbroken sunshine where the solars constantly assured voltage from as early as 6oc in the morning to 8 or 9oc at night, I was not paying enough attention to the real situation.  Already in early October the sun window is 9am to 6pm and this can be seen by just reading the voltage.  Even with extreme economy it will be 12.3v when I get up ie that there is insufficient control of charging. It looks like the vartas are damaged beyond repair by overcharging as they should hold 12.6 according to advice received. 



October began with Atlantic storm Amy dumping large amounts of rain and brought blustery conditions but no disruption as the centre stayed off shore to the west of the island of Ireland. There was noticeable leaf fall but not enough to bare the trees.  Leaf mugging is a bit of an issue as I found driving up to KateBoats on Monday6 in calm and sunny conditions.  Because the canals are still shut I have a ticket out of Nuneaton for Tue7th to catch u3a in Fletton on Tuesday evening and possibly do laundry Thu/Fri. and come back to the boat at the weekend. Or not?  NOTE: I did make the u3a and an application is in the post. 

Saturday 11th October. 
I have committed to getting 200W of LiFePO4 and hiding it 'under the floorboards' and the whole package will cost £755.  There is no other option as the Vartas are not able to provide the line voltage needed when needed.  The order went in while I was at the flat and delivery is imminent after the w/e. So, back on board I have disconnected Wavy ready to turn Pentargon to be at KateBoats on Monday morning