74 By the Dart • Life Aboard
had a cross word is presenting alternative facts in my opinion. There are other considerations to life aboard. I suppose how important they are depends upon your sensibilities. But I must point out to anybody out there who is considering living on a boat - place this in your mind’s eye... and trust me, I have endured it. A potential emergency which must be addressed occurs - could be anything from a rigging failure to one of many alarms shrieking, a huge noise or worst case scenario, a cry for help. Your partner will leap from his berth, bellowing instructions at you whilst - and I am sorry to have to bring this to your attention - bending over naked with his back to you as he struggles to pull his pants on and fails. One leg only goes in and he falls, spreadeagled. Oh God. I still flinch at the memory. I was obliged to resort to a measure of Pussers Rum ( 48%). I cannot emphasise enough that it is of no use to be precious, or ladylike or indeed anything one aims to be ashore. Actually, in all honesty, I never was like that which is why I am one of the relatively few females who can tolerate the terror, indignity and privations of life aboard. The compensations though are immeasurable. Sunrises and sunsets, harmony with the sea, the creatures, the natural world. Above all, the wonderful realisation that your fellow river dwellers and workers all help each other out and how much of a powerful instinct it is. Somebody is in trouble? Help them. No questions asked. I think of my 5 years aboard that has been the most inspiring and moving aspect. We are all far from saints of course and loss of life apart, we tend to laugh at each other. No names - what happens on the Dart stays on the Dart - but some of my favourite memories demonstrate this unique water based community; A yacht (the skipper not in view) dragged anchor, snagging our mooring buoy - we had realised it was slowly drifting our way and a collision with the yacht to our stern might occur. Having requested assistance from Harbour Patrol and alerted our neighbours via a loud hailer to fender up (sharpish!) we immediately received several calls from fellow live-aboards along the lines of “ I see you caught one!” and “Grab the boat hook; he’ll be in any second!” and “ As good as a play, this is!” My character is so shocking that I called a friend who knows what’s what in nautical terms for the sole purpose of being able to state pompously, “ You see, they always underestimate their scope”. ( The length of rope you pay out to your anchor or something like that) As if I know anything about it! Then there was a very experienced river dweller who hit a buoy with his tender,was catapulted into the river slicing his knee on the propeller but because it was in front of the tourists lining the embankment, he swam around it twice hoping to convince them that he was inspecting it. One once clung to our buoy for two hours when we were ashore - hoping for a passer by rather than call for
help. None of us like to be laughed at or worse, if you really forget your manners, risking being shoved head first into the boat float. Another ran out of petrol in his tender and being swept swiftly out of the harbour called a sailor out in the middle of the night. Both were somewhat befuddled. One via barrel fever and the other rudely awoken from a sound sleep- all went well but apparently the rescuer had a face like thunder, uttered not a single word, merely throwing the rescuee onto his boat followed swiftly by his rather bemused and sodden mongrel. We all do our best to help each other survive another
day. What I don’t think, however, is that Hub is going to live another five seconds. I asked him to bring me some oven gloves from the boat. He brought me instead (and only he can ever know the rationale behind it) a camera that doesn’t work. I burned my fingers attempting to remove half a duck from the oven with only a tea towel and he , on inspecting said wound, requested that since he had now successfully mended the camera whilst I was cooking, could he take a picture of my blister as it was “ unbelievably” large and “the best he had ever seen”. There are not many occasions when words fail me - so over and out... Literally, knowing my luck !
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