Date - 8-9 Jan 09 Day - Thurs-Fri The Final Chapter We looked out on Thursday morning and there was water on top of the ice but the ice appeared to be just as thick and consequently there was no sign of Dave. As the day progressed the ice continued to thaw and mid afternoon, as we were very low on water I decided to do a bit of gentle ice breaking, moving quite slowly out into the centre of the marina basin and then towards the far end cutting a couple of channels through the ice. Derwent6 took a photo of us as we approached them which you can see on their Blog here. Some of the moorers on that side of the basin started to get agitated that I may damage their boats so I moored up again and went round to explained that I was going slowly and not pushing ice across against their boat, but before I could say anything the chap moored on the end of the row came home from work, started his engine and said "Well I'm just off for a pump out" with that he selected reverse and powered out backwards through the ice. Not a word was said and a couple of people there left the scene. He found it quite easy getting through to where I had cut the channel but after that he was going forward and then coming back and ramming it as hard as he could. I walked round to the service dock to see if we could have a pump out as well and as the answer was yes we cast off again and turned in the now broken ice to head towards the service dock, meeting the other boat on the way. Before we had completed our pump out it was getting quite dark and I had removed all the external lights ready for our repaint, so once I had paid the bill, only a tenner we slid back to our mooring under the cover of darkness. As we had also taken on water we were both able to have a show before heading to the pub at Gumley for a very good meal. On the way I phoned Dave and told him the condition of the ice and arranged to see him the next morning.
Friday morning and the boat was a bit smelly, I put it down to the smoke from the chimneys of the other boats in the marina but it turned out to be our stove so I shut it down and set to giving it a clean out. About 10 AM Dave and Russell brought the boat they had been working on out of the paint dock and returned it to its moorings and then walked over to see us about 11 AM just after I came out of the shower having "done" the stove. We slipped the moorings and headed into the paint dock which was well packed with the ice we pushed ahead of us. Once in the dock we unloaded the boat and then went through the details of what we wanted in the way of colours and sign writing before heading off to the freezing fog on the A14. We are now boatless until around Valentines Day. You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route -- Brian <[email protected]> Visit my Web site at http://www.harnser.info
