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LIFE ABOARD Life Aboard BY MARIANNe BARTRAM


MARIANNE LIVES ABOARD THE MV TRESHNISH ON THE RIVER DART WITH HER HUSBAND NIGEL


In the event that you go mad and decide to test the strength of your relationship - live on a boat! You can’t just flounce out of the front door. You have a tender but by the time you’ve pumped it out, checked the fuel, wiped the seats, started the outboard, found your money, put on your life jacket (which, oddly, always makes me want a wee so it has to come straight off again), checked the tide, written a list, loaded on the water con- tainers and untied the ropes you will be shattered and beg- ging your other half to lend a hand no matter how infuriated you’d been with each other a mere half an hour ago. Then there is the question of a small space, lack of privacy and close proximity. I recall our Marine Gas engineer coming aboard to install a new heating system. I was asleep and so somewhat surprised to be woken up by him saying, “Lift your leg out of the way, sweetheart.” I really thought my luck was in but he only wanted to prise off the panel under my berth. I mean, imagine that happening in the bedroom of your house? You see, sailors are used to “hot


berthing” (one gets out and another one gets straight in) and crew in various states of undress, so the usual social mores simply don’t apply. Then there is “Well, I’m off to check the anchor” or “Better water the ropes” - normal terminology and behaviour on a boat but if somebody was to take a pee off the roof of your house, you would be understandably astonished and might even consider calling the police…


With guests due, I was constructing a Beef Wellington (yes, more fool


me) when hub barged into the galley brandishing a battered and mildewed copy of “elementary seamanship” and asked me if I knew how to “box” a compass. I said, no, I didn’t, but what I did know was where I would shove one if he didn’t get out from under my feet.


Then there was my first lesson driving a new dory with a different outboard. Before I could even collect my wits he was bellowing, “Throttle up. Now down, DoWN! –go around! slow up! Fend off! gears! Fend off NoW! What are you DoINg?” We collided with a loud crack against a pontoon and with such force that my feet actually flew up from the deck (at my age I imagine that this is normally only possible with a trampoline – if I hadn’t been so cross it might have


So it begins to dawn on me that my life on the boat, delightful though it is, seems to revolve around my not knowing things and the things that I do know about are of little or no use at all.


felt rather exhilarating). We ran out of petrol and had to scull ourselves back. out of consideration for other river users you have to get back on board for a good row as sound carries across water and, well, my language is often quite appalling. (I fear I may have some sort of as yet unacknowledged version of Tourettes syndrome which only kicks in the minute he answers back).


When we first contemplated buying


the Tresh, the owner asked me if I knew anything about gardeners. I said I most certainly did and bored


him witless with a story of my last one who planted one bulb per foot around the perimeter of our garden as opposed to clumping them under trees as I had expected and indeed wished for. He has excellent manners and heard me out politely but I somehow sensed that we weren’t singing from the same hymn sheet. It turned out that the engine is called a Gardner. Who would have thought it? so it begins to dawn on me that


my life on the boat, delightful though it is, seems to revolve around my not knowing things and the things that I do know about (not much, admittedly) are of little or no use at all – like playing pan pipes, Chinese water colours, Latin, the use of the Tarot, landing a light aircraft, potholing, Noritake porcelain and Shotokan karate.


And worse still, since I have never been one for “domestic minutiae” and my lovely - if stubborn - cleaning lady point blank refused to join me in Dartmouth on the basis that boats were “dirty and dangerous”, I now have to do it all myself. Hoovers are particularly aggravating things, aren’t they? I don’t know which bit fits to what (and, to be honest, couldn’t care less anyway) so I’m right up there with Nietzsche on the “utter malignity of inanimate objects”. You can labour for what feels like forever over a crumb dropped on the sole and get nowhere – yet when I was looking after a neighbour’s budgie and went to clean its cage, the wretched bird shot up the pipe like greased lightning. I went quite dizzy with horror. I finally released it from the dust bag but it took me an hour to catch it. Such a commotion – what with my cat banging in through


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