LIFE ABOARD Life Aboard bY mArIANNe bArtrAm
MARIANNE LIVES ABOARD THE MV TRESHNISH ON THE RIVER DART WITH HER HUSBAND NIGEL
pulled my cord once too often. they have to be the most useless, unreliable lumps of heavy, ill-designed, infuriating, rubbish things in the history of motorised transport. take it from me – you have more chance of successfully completing a crossing of the river Dart clinging to the strings of a large kite – or the leg of a gull. Heaving and pulling to the point of a heart attack is a drain on my temper, never mind the NHs. You make an utter nuisance of yourself by needing a tow and although we river-users take pride in supporting each other and helping out when needed, I personally feel a total nit. they are cunning too – having
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given 65 pulls before it starts (I counted – I am a bit neurotic like that. I even counted how many times I threw up when sea sick - 33, if you are interested and one was just because I sneezed). they won’t fail at the start of the journey as you are naturally exhausted. No. It will be mid-river, and usually on a spring flood tide, against which you have no hope … then we begin. Hub bawls at me and asks me if I’m listening – well, no, not really. Having little faith in our abilities to remedy the situation, I am studying the tide. We are drifting and I can’t help but reflect on the conflicting needs in the wardrobe and accessories department if, say, we should wash up in totnes (flood tide - beads, bright colours, mongrel on a string, ethnic drums?) or Jersey (ebb tide - cashmere, pearls, Krug, bank statement?) Dear me …
utboards. I’ve snapped. They’ve
there seems to be no end to the social conventions that beset one. Having grabbed my attention –
he threw a mackerel at me once (no really!) – he then sees fit to impose a series of contradictory and physically impossible challenges. It reminds me of that song – the Hokey cokey. I am plunged suddenly into a maritime version of it, in which it seems I must put my left leg in, my right arm out, do the something or another and shake it all about. It never proceeds well. I call him
“I was asked recently if I would recommend this lifestyle. I was in the launderette, hefting weighty towels dank with mildew and rainwater. I felt - yes I would, but ideally I would be a lot younger.”
a panicking fool and he declares me so incapable of independent thought that he would be better off discussing strategy with the ship’s cat. Oddly, when the hateful thing starts up again, we instantly congratulate each other on how well we work as a team and are two sides of the same coin. Proof (if proof were needed) that a couple living aboard will in due course become entirely witless. I recall us giving a tow to a very
smart dinghy and apologising to its equally smart owner for the paint spattered, collapsing state of our own. He responded grandly, “my
dear, you and your craft could be the Devil incarnate for all I care, as long as you get me across!” to continue on the outboard theme – they are as a magnet to a dropped painter and swizz around with far more energy than they will ever employ in starting up, in order to ensnare and halt your propeller with a loud (and expensive) clunk. Also, they will – astonishing if you know how hard it is to intentionally remove one – sink quietly onto the ocean bed. It is deep with silt and (well, we all know, don’t we) littered with World War two dumped ammunition, as indeed you and the whole town will soon discover should you be bold enough to employ a grappling hook to haul it up. I have even known one to come to a complete sulky stop when encountering a leaf. A leaf! I was asked recently if I would
recommend this lifestyle. I was in the launderette, hefting weighty towels dank with mildew and rainwater. I felt - yes I would, but ideally I would be a lot younger. Old age creeps up on you slowly. this is, of course, a huge blessing. Only consider if one morning you awake to find every joint to be painful, you are stone deaf, toothless, your vision is blurred and whilst last night is hard to recall, events from some thirty years ago are crystal clear. You would surely be excused from concluding that you were just coming round having toppled out of a light aircraft. Which reminds me … I wonder
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