I’ve been getting used to life on a boat with a clumpy boot on my right foot. At least it can come off overnight and I seem to be very fortunate that the fracture is not causing too much pain. I have to take care getting on and off the boat and jumping up and down off my stool, (essential to seeing where I am headed) as I don’t want to do further bone damage or end up in the canal – balance could be an issue!
R got the train home on Monday for an appointment whilst my friend F arrived at the same station to join me for a few days. We’ve had quite an adventure. There has only been one lock so far, and we approached it after about three hours of travelling in the late afternoon. As we entered the lock the yellow oil warning light lit up, so I cut the engine and on exiting the lock I decided to walk the boat out rather than turn on the ignition. Mooring up on the bollards, we walked along the towpath to find a garage to buy some oil. In doing so, we passed a familiar looking boat and, finding out friends aboard, we stopped for a drink or two and decided to sort the oil issue out the next morning.
Refreshed, first thing the next day, I removed the floorboard covering the engine bay and was surprised to see water on the floor, as although it had rained overnight, it had not been prolonged. Using my handy grabber, with kitchen towel attached, I realised the liquid was infact oil and extracting the dip stick found, unsurprisingly, the oil level below minimum. I had checked the oil level two days previously, so this was unusual. I clomped along the towpath to the garage (this time of day our friends boat offered coffee from a pucker coffee machine!), eventually purchasing 5l of oil, having rifled through paperwork to find the correct oil for our particular engine. Perturbed by the sudden decrease of oil, it dawned on me that further oil poured into the engine would probably just leak out so I needed an engineer – I couldn’t risk setting off along the cut and breaking down. Who to call? I remembered friends of my sister’s lived nearby and as well as being members of the Boaters Christian Fellowship they are also Waterways Chaplains, so I hunted down their number and gave them a call. Unbeknownst to me, they were cruising a different part of the cut, enjoying a coffee break in the middle of a flight of locks. Hearing their mobile phone ringing and not recognising my number, they nearly ignored it, due to receiving so many scam calls. Something prompted them to pick up and I was able to explain my dilemma. They suggested I contact a lady called J, a permanent moorer in the village as she would know of local boat engineers. Naming her boat, I was moored directly opposite it and she was standing on the towpath! After a brief resume, she said she’d ring Steve, in her opinion the best engineer around. He said he could get to me in half an hour. Pouring in the oil until it registered on the dipstick (all 5l), we then turned on the engine and a fountain of oil immediately spurted out. It transpired that the wrong size oil filter had been fitted to the engine which meant as we were travelling along the metal rings on a nearby piece of piping, were tapping against the oil filter until it suddenly sprung a leak. Steve told me that if this had happened whilst I was cruising along, it would have been unlikely that I would have immediately noticed the oil light or stopped the engine so quickly. Within a very short space of time irreparable damage to the engine would have been caused resulting in the need to purchase a new one. Fortunately as the leak occurred at the lock, enough oil remained in the engine for it not to seize up and I had had the sense not to try to move.
I still had the problem of almost 10l of oil over the floor of my engine bay. Although we carry nappies for minor spills (just on the boat!), they couldn’t cope with this quantity of oil and until cleaned up I couldn’t turn on my bilge pump because the oil would contaminate the canal water. J called to me to move my boat across to hers and she then proceeded to pump out all the oil into a ‘dirty vax’, followed by cleaning and rinsing the floor. I could not believe her kindness, to which she replied (she had also seen my Canal Ministry sign on the side of my boat) “any friend of the waterways chaplains is a friend to me”. It transpires that recently the local chaplains had been really supportive and she wanted to repay their kindness to her! I was the incredibly fortunate beneficiary.
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