A Life Aboard
A Life Aboard: July 2014
In the event that you go mad and decide to test the strength of your relationship - live on a boat! You can’t just flounce out of the front door. You have a tender but by the time you’ve pumped it out, checked the fuel, wiped the seats, started the outboard, found your money, put on your life jacket (which, oddly, always makes me want a wee so it has to come straight off again), checked the tide, written a list, loaded on the water containers and untied the ropes you will be shattered and begging your other half to lend a hand no matter how infuriated you’d been with each other a mere half an hour ago.
Then there is the question of a small space, lack of privacy and close proximity. I recall our Marine Gas Engineer coming aboard to install a new heating system. I was asleep and so somewhat surprised to be woken up by him saying, “Lift your leg out of the way, sweetheart.” I really thought my luck was in but he only wanted to prise off the panel under my berth. I mean, imagine that happening in the bedroom of your house?
You see, sailors are used to “hot berthing” (one gets out and another one gets straight in) and crew in various states of undress, so the usual social mores simply don’t apply. Then there is “Well, I’m off to check the anchor” or “Better water the ropes” - normal terminology and behaviour on a boat but if somebody was to take a pee off the roof of your house, you would be understandably astonished and might even consider calling the police…
With guests due, I was constructing a Beef Wellington (yes, more fool me) when hub barged into the galley brandishing a battered and mildewed copy of “Elementary Seamanship” and asked me if I knew how to “box” a compass. I said, no, I didn’t, but what I did know was where I would shove one if he didn’t get out from under my feet.
Then there was my first lesson driving a new dory with a different outboard. Before I could even collect my wits he was bellowing, “Throttle up. Now down, DOWN! –go around! Slow up! Fend off! Gears! Fend off NOW! What are you DOING?” We collided with a loud crack against a pontoon and with such force that my feet actually flew up from the deck (at my age I imagine that this is normally only possible with a trampoline – if I hadn’t been so cross it might have felt rather exhilarating). We ran out of petrol and had to scull ourselves back. Out of consideration for other river users you have to get back on board for a good row as sound carries across water and, well, my language is often quite appalling. (I fear I may have some sort of as yet unacknowledged version of Tourettes syndrome which only kicks in the minute he answers back).
When we first contemplated buying the Tresh, the owner asked me if I knew anything about gardeners. I said I most certainly did and bored him witless with a story of my last one who planted one bulb per foot around the perimeter of our garden as opposed to clumping them under trees as I had expected and indeed wished for. He has excellent manners and heard me out politely but I somehow sensed that we weren’t singing from the same hymn sheet. It turned out that the engine is called a Gardner. Who would have thought it?
So it begins to dawn on me that my life on the boat, delightful though it is, seems to revolve around my not knowing things and the things that I do know about (not much, admittedly) are of little or no use at all – like playing pan pipes, Chinese water colours, Latin, the use of the Tarot, landing a light aircraft, potholing, Noritake porcelain and Shotokan karate.
And worse still, since I have never been one for “domestic minutiae” and my lovely - if stubborn - cleaning lady point blank refused to join me in Dartmouth on the basis that boats were “dirty and dangerous”, I now have to do it all myself. Hoovers are particularly aggravating things, aren’t they? I don’t know which bit fits to what (and, to be honest, couldn’t care less anyway) so I’m right up there with Nietzsche on the “utter malignity of inanimate objects”. You can labour for what feels like forever over a crumb dropped on the sole and get nowhere – yet when I was looking after a neighbour’s budgie and went to clean its cage, the wretched bird shot up the pipe like greased lightning. I went quite dizzy with horror. I finally released it from the dust bag but it took me an hour to catch it. Such a commotion – what with my cat banging in through its flap looking menacing and my Labrador yelping and spinning with excitement and Hub making things worse … How he thinks you can capture a budgerigar with a tennis racquet and a duster is frankly quite beyond me. I thought I would faint. Living on a boat is truly wonderful but I miss pets. I yearn for a parrot. You know, one of those gaudy ones that come in red, green and blue. Hub has vetoed it on the basis that they are “Noisy, smelly, demanding creatures that create a mess everywhere and cost the earth.” (And the difference between that and men would be what, exactly?)
So the pleasing vision I had of myself strolling around Dartmouth sporting a fetching eye patch with a chatty Macaw blu-tacked to my shoulder must be put on hold for now. I had a cunning plan to teach it to tell tourists exactly where the Post Office was thus saving me the trouble but there you go…
Ferocious storms, uppity pirates, killer whales are as nothing to me these days; nothing - but if, for example, I can’t find a pen I am prone to a sudden meltdown. Unfortunately, I have just read that this sort of petty anxiety is a prime cause of sleepwalking . Well - that’s a bit of a worry, isn’t it, when you live on a boat? I mean, there you are one minute, tucked up in your berth and the next you are in the river? Startled. Appalled, even. The thing is, it always pays to continually consider and review all your options when you live aboard as things can go rapidly from bad to worse and you can easily find yourself stuck literally between a rock and a hard place. Hmm.. I suppose I could nail one of Hub’s socks over each door. They would wake the dead! In fact, he has just returned, apparently having been scouring the local antique shops. “Oh yes?” I asked, interested, “What were you after?”.
He looked darkly at me and declared “A Scolds Bridle”. Ah – um – well, understandable, I suppose!
The Music Festival was astoundingly brilliant and even the sun shone upon it!
We were all, somehow or another, thankfully spared the aroma of twenty vans cooking burgers to add to our delight. The sea shanties naturally appeal to us hugely as does the Flamenco (I wonder if I could persuade Carlos – the hugely popular bar keep supremo of the Royal Castle to give us a turn one of these days? I bet he would!)
In fact we got so excited (it may have been the effect of local Devon cider which is the best in England and always inspiring) that we even considered forming our own group called “The Trashed Nish Doo Dah Band” (tickets available in due course!)
It’s a pity you can’t get round to see everybody but all the performers at the Festival deserve and receive much appreciation. Anyway, if you miss them you have the very best of photographers to capture them and artists to paint them. Dartmouth is such a great place to be so let’s face it, you just can’t lose. So here comes Summer! Raise a (huge) glass to the Dart and enjoy!!
First Published July 2014