Back to living the dream

 So, how long has it been? A month? Yes, horrible! But we managed to fill the time in. 

 

Fabulous weather, too hot at times. My brother came over from Majorca to get away from the heat there, and we had a heat wave here, which wasn’t great on the boat, so he got a hotel room 😓. He hasn’t been well and I was hoping to make him feel better, and hopefully it helped.  Meanwhile our Holding tank had filled up two weeks before, as we couldn’t motor to the Pump Out station, and the boat was slightly listing to the side. We were having to use the cassette Loo and Marina facilities. I was getting paranoid about the smell, which we fixed. ..  Too much information!

Finally, a week ago the engineer turned up, replaced our gearbox and a seal within the engine itself. £2000! It seems that at some point, the previous owners would have bumped the propeller with something big under the water which caused both problems that we have had, the propeller shaft and the leaking gearbox and seal. Hopefully this is the end of it and we now have a beautiful boat again. 

So back we went, down the Severn, past the working boats, and up the Avon. We  were feeling a little rusty…. Or maybe we were still feeling a bit shellshocked and sore following our motor experience. Anyway we spent the night at Tewkesbury, event free. 

We looked at a house on the waterfront that we might have be interested in buying, but it wasn’t the one! We have been looking at one or two around the area so that we will have somewhere to go in the winter when we settle down. 

 

Next morning, we were about to take off and fill up with water when Andy called me over to have a look in the engine bay. It had 8 inches of water in it. We needed water, but not here!😩 Oh no, not again. He was upset and I was nearly in tears. We rang RCR again….. They know us quite well now, and fortunately they were able to talk us through the problem. We need to be careful not to overtighten the nuts on the propeller shaft. We are certainly learning the hard way. Luckily we had bought a siphon pump (another story) which we were able to use to bail out the water which would’ve been difficult with a small 1L jug. 

We continue our journey towards Pershore. The River Avon is absolutely beautiful. It is so beautiful you have to buy a license to go up it, which is quite expensive, £75 for two weeks but well worth it. It is quiet and not full of holiday boaters (sorry guys).  There are people enjoying the water in the towns and swans, ducks and geese everywhere. The Riverbanks are picturesque. This is the place to spend August for sure!

 

At Strensham Lock we were the only people moored, and we had a fabulous night. 

This is as far as we managed to get before the big breakdown occurred when we were returning to Worcester, so all new territory from now on. We now check under the Engine hatch twice a day, and have learned to be diligent. This takes the anxiety away. Chatting to other boaters, they’ve all had similar experiences of things going wrong, especially with new boats, and certainly with all electric boats, so we don’t feel too bad now.