35


Life Aboard BY MARIANNE BARTRAM


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


rather not, thanks all the same. The anode weighs more than I do and holding it over my head would certainly result in a sharp pain somewhere or another. He scoffed at my megrims, declaring it a “five minute job”. One and a half hours later we were considering our options (a divorce came to my mind). But the tide was coming in so I put two woolly hats on and bore the weight on my thick brass skull as Hub heaved and cursed while nuts and washers flew into the mud. The trouble was that we kept having “As the Actress said to the Bishop” moments as in “That’s it, shove it in and keep it rigid. Perfect! No, don’t move an inch, I was nearly there!” Fits of the giggles are less than helpful… Anyway, we finally attached the wretched thing to the hull and escaped via the steps just in time. Filthy, exhausted but strangely euphoric. How odd – having changed, I


S


compiled a list of jobs that needed attending to and it totalled 34. Exactly the same quantity as the last list yet totally different chores! Being stranded on the grid is bad enough – being forced to render ourselves hideous to the river community ... even worse. Imagine living for months at an angle of 6 degrees, wincing at the sound of your keel slamming onto concrete stanchions at each turn of the tide. The joists strain and protest. You run unexpectedly into doors, tottering and tilting to the point of nausea. (And don’t even talk to me about the twenty plus dogs that have peed with vigour on the breast line).


hould you be asked to fit a foot long anode to a hull – avoid. Trust me. Hub requested my assistance in the matter. I pointed out that I would


Also the rain can’t drain away from the deck One and a half


hours later we were considering our options (a divorce came to my mind)


naturally and it just puddles until it finds a way in. I do wish people would try to understand the nature of wooden boats and thereby comprehend that running a bilge pump does not constitute a leak. It’s normal maintenance. It rains in Dartmouth. The fact that we haven’t parted a plank (yet) demonstrates the sound state of our hull. Local shipwrights warned us that our joists were being stressed. We had already sensed that and so, despite being – let us say – “discouraged” to move her onto the mud and gravel thus allowing other river users to access the grid, we decided to move her anyway at the first chance. If your vessel is at risk you have to take the appropriate action. My potholing experience is now proving invaluable when it comes to leaving the boat, involving, as it does, ropes, ladders and abseiling. We were berated by a white-haired,


red-faced oddity (I don’t know who he was and I doubt he knew either). He had a high-pitched, shouty voice and pumped his arms up and down as if conducting an orchestra. I let Hub deal with him. He is good


with nutters. (Probably marriage to me has helped.) Better than my methods which involve the ship’s axe. Employed.very.slowly. It really is like living in a zoo at the moment. Passers


by don’t realise that you can hear every word. Most people like her and are interested in her history. A few carry incivility to the point of insult. Patience is not my forté. One group of men asked each other how much


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