Two or three months ago the Cardinal and I cruised past a …cruiser …with an unfeasible number of people around it, all of whom seemed to be taking their leave (and anything else that was not nailed down). As we passed they made comment on the Cardinal’s solar panel array, and I replied in my very bestest “been off my medication for quite some time now” voice to the effect that the Cardinal’s solar panel array, and indeed the Cardinal himself was possessed of and guarded by a small maniac.
i.e., Me.
The next day the poor wee timorous beastie – the cruiser – was at the bottom of the ocean.
Well, on the bottom, in five feet of canal water. In the photographs you can see the tide mark that has formed as it lay at an angle.
Ordinarily it takes about a year or more to remove remains, so something or someone has kick-started the procedure and accelerated the process. I suspect that the day will not end well with the little cruiser, and that he will cruise no more, going to that Great Knacker’s Yard in the sky wherein we all meet our end.
He was about a third of a mile along from the scene shown here, with no road access possible, so the recovery must have been accomplished by water craft. Mayhap the tugs and pontoons in blue livery. You can see what is involved. Eight or ten men, half a dozen vans, an HGV to carry the remains, a fairly large R.I.B. carrying safety blokes – and a lot of work to the edge of the canal & moorings, to allow for craning the beast out.
I didn’t lurk around, the Cardinal and I were cruising past as the recovery was about to begin. Naturally, the R.I.B. was in the water and flapping around, the tugs and pontoons were looking for space and I met not one but two boats coming at us in quick succession as we approached the (blind, on a bend) bridge. SNAFU there then. Pootle pootle pootle, and the chap on the second boat was kind enough to advise me that it was all clear behind him. Ta very muchly!
Oh what a circus, oh what a show. Argentina has gone to town… Damn, that ages me!
These photographs were taken after I’d moored up some distance ahead, when I had leisure to wander back for a nosey-pokery look-see.
I have no idea whether the cruiser was stolen or “just” abandoned by the folk I saw. It was someone’s pride and joy, once upon a time.
The moorings that I am on for the mo have their advantages. My interwebnets aerial doesn’t have to use much electricity to contact the mobile phone mast…
But – there’s always a but – the disadvantages are twofold. There’s no armco, no rings, so mooring is by banging in stakes (five stakes, three ropes so far), and hoping that the ground is not yet so soft from the recent rains as to let us go… and there is a hire boat emporium just up the canal, from which the bats of hell are regularly let loose, trying their best to un-pin us all. That said, private boats are among the least considerate in re steaming past at a rate of silly knots, and I won’t name any boat names but you know who you are, and I will return the favour some day.
Mr Sunshine has been in and out, but out enough to keep Messrs Batteries & Co happy until dusk. The necessary of having the diesel engine running to move the boat means hot water now for some three days (it’s a v.well insulated tank)!
The trouble with having four or five seasons in one day is that the wildlife gets so confused. The vultures are gathering in the tree-tops, but have no idea why, and they just sit there for hours, wondering what is occurring.
Now that is the question, isn’t it.
Generally, I go through life quite without knowing.
It’s all probably for the best.
I shan’t need much rocking tonight. Mind you, the wind’s getting up and it’s blowing off the towpath, so I shall get a little rocking whether I want it or not.
Chin-chin for the mo.
Salve regina mater misericordiae
Vita dulcedo et spes nostra
Salve salve regina Peron
Ad te clamamus exules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes
O clemens o pia
(A non-descript girl moves through the pageantry of the
Funeral. She sings as the voice of the dead Evita)…
;-(
The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company. 
Evita was the first ‘rock-opera’ I ever saw live. Gobsmacked, I was. ‘What a show’ indeed. 😀
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Better make sure the solar panels are connected to a fully charged battery vide some bare copper wire, Ian – giving the tealeafs a shock before they give you one by nicking the panels…
Actually, a little bear (instead of bare – wires) would probably also be quite effective for shocking them, but bears eat an awful lot, so your vegetarian meals would need to double up…
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Mary had a little bear,
but it was the needy kind,
so everywhere that Mary went
you could see her bear behind.
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Yep 😀
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Sad ending…….
And think of all the money needed, to pay off, all the take-away-crew! Ouch! Not only does he lose his boat, but a lot of money, for the ‘end.’
When will you begin experimenting with stove top baking….? ,-)))))))))
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They won’t see much change out of ten pound note, that’s for certain. Stove-top baking once the season is in and I have re-mastered the noble art of keeping the stove lit and happy – it seems ages since! 😉
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It all happens in your neck of the woods! Do people really strip stuff off boats? What is the crime like on the canals, apart from the chance burying of bodies whenever there’s a breach and the tide is out? I do feel a crime novel ought to be written about the life, I’ll leave the romance to you, as I haven’t got a clue what it is!
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Crinimalality varies from region to region, I just take the usual precautions. A surprising number of boats of all varieties are nicked though. It is a testament to how very little people actually see or take note of these days, everyone is generally too busy having their own modern crisis to notice the boat next to them in the marina being made off with.
The usual statistics apply, in that 90% of the dodgy characters are probably the least likely to nick your stuff while only 10% of the “respectable-looking” folk are to be trusted… The whole of the human bell-curve is compacted onto the 36,000 boats of the canals (some 6,000 being liveaboards). We have a little more than usual of the very worst end (when corrected for appearance and assumption), and I am told that there is a little more out there too of the “best” end of the bell-curve distribution.
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