We said our goodbyes to the kind people of TMYC, promised to revisit the club on our way back down from Oxford and set off for Sunbury-on-Thames. We had arranged to meet “Steve the fuel man” in the Sunbury area. Steve delivers fuel from his fuel barge, so he claims to deliver to wherever you are. I was interested in how this was going to work, particularly as we had asked for, and were assured that he could deliver 300 litres of diesel. So we kept out eyes out for a suitable place to stop. We use a book/guide of the Thames River which has very informative maps as well as an app on our phones, both of which will tell us where boats are allowed to moor up. A lot of moorings along the Thames are privately owned with some very stern warnings if you dare tie up on one. This is different from travelling on canals, where you can basically stop and tie up anywhere along the banks.
We found a mooring bank and space, near a cute pub and decided this would work. However, for the first time, I had to jump onto the bank with the rope and hold as best I could, without any bollard or even a tree to help me. Fortunately Patrick is really skilled at this, so he slowed the boat down to almost no speed, and the bank wasn't too far away, the drop was not too far down nor slippery – all the things my imagination convinced me would lead to a catastrophic outcome.
As there was no tide and on that day, no wind, the boat just stayed where she was. I was able to hold both centre line (rope) and a forward line and left an aft line on the bank. Patrick jumped off and he hammered stakes/pins into the ground and attached the lines.
A friend of ours had kindly given us a ground anchor, which was basically a “screw-in stake”, marketed by the company Roughneck. He said to try it out as a mooring stake for the boat - something that this ground anchor was probably not designed for. Patrick was impressed in how easily it screwed in and how secure it was. I wasn't sure what to say, so made suitable appreciative noises, but agreed that we would definitely be using it again, and would probably buy another one or two.
We were all secure and ready for the day.
We called Steve the fuel man, let him know where we were. As we were now tied up to a bank, we had no electricity so I set up the little gas stove and made us some toast and coffee. After a few hours and no show from Steve, we locked up the boat and went walked into the town, with my new shopping trolley. It was a hot day, which required ice-creams and an agreement that it was BBQ for dinner. We filled that shopping trolley up with all the necessities and made our way back passing some really old houses.
As the day drew on and still no show from Steve, we gave up on him and Patrick did some research on fuel availability along the river. There were plenty of stops for fuel.
The river got really busy so we had plenty to watch – some beautiful boats and some we thought we would never see again! Just as we got tired of it all, a really small little boat with a family – two small girls, caught our eye as they seemed to want to moor up in the tiny space between us and another boat. They were, however, coming in at a speed and we heard them say that the outboard engine had no reverse, so they were going to just come to the bank, in neutral. As they tucked in between us and the boat behind us, Patrick and I jumped off our boat and asked them to throw us their forward and stern lines and we would stop their boat from going into the back of our (steel) boat. The wife leaned down and picked up a tangled lot of rope which was still attached to a steel ground stake and was about to throw it to me – her husband who was trying to steer also attempted to do the same to Patrick. I quickly said “no, don’t throw that”, just lean over and either hand it to me or throw it on the bank! Patrick managed to grab the rope from the husband and between us, stopped the boat. Patrick calmly explained to the man that next time it is best to undo the rope from the steel stakes. The man loudly replied that there was NOT going to be a next time. This was his brothers boat and he was done with the day and with his brother. He then got off the boat and onto the phone to his brother – we didn’t hang around to hear what happened next.
As it was such a lovely warm day, and it had been more than a week since I had varnished anything, I decided to remind myself why I never want to varnish again. I only did the handrails, but it was enough to trigger all the trauma. But nothing that a cold beer couldn’t sort out.
We never did hear from Steve but we did have a lovely BBQ. Just down the river a birthday party was getting into full swing as we sat down to eat. Then the karaoke started and Patrick and I both agreed that we were only able to identify 1 out of 6 songs, within the first two lines. The rest took at least half the song before we were even close at working it out.
As it got late, the mosquitoes arrived so we closed up everything and ran our mosquito repellent machines for a few hours, on the inverter. It was the first time we had used them on the boat and they really worked well. The water that had heated up when the engine was running was slowly cooling and we didn’t want to run the generator to heat up water, so we both had cool showers. I was thrilled to find that the karaoke had stopped by the time I got out of the shower.
We checked out our route for tomorrow – Windsor and it would be a marina as Patrick was working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I might be over my triggered trauma by then and so may do some more varnishing. As long as there is beer.
