This is Steve & Viv Carter's log of the trips and travails on the narrowboat Adagio – liveaboards from October 2015. Then back to the shore, in Trefin, Wales from November 2019. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." (Mark Twain)” narrowboatadagio@gmail.com cranog5@gmail.com
Days 9 & 10 – Le Weekend
Chance for the glumness to subside? Moored up near bridge 27 on the Coventry. A quiet weekend, not moving at all. Lots of sunshine – the solar panels doing their job and taking the batteries to 100%. Viv cleaned all the windows & Steve polished some of the boat. Visited the marina to see about Monday – saw Kevin (the Victron guy – who helped to install the batteries last year). Seems they are going to be very busy next week, so Cox’s will have to come out & remove the gear themselves – suits me.
I bought the descaler – Leescale (£23!!) but it is designed for the purpose of descaling toilets so, job done(!). Still feeling extremely depressed but I guess this is a shakedown week and it’s all about getting things sorted. The forecast for Easter is 18 degrees! About double what it is today. So that looks good.
A couple of boats moored here – one called Chloe – rings a bell and so it should as we met Steve on his boat on the Ashby last Summer. He even came round for tea!
Took some more pix . .
Saturday night – time for tapas & CavaSunday morning stroll up the hill – taking photos of the boat – middle picture? Then zoomed in:
20x zoomChloe too, although I heard Steve say he wanted to rename it Voyager 3Fields of oil seed rape plus a Virgin trainThe weather station – I’ve made a rod for my own back with this device. Always having to put it back up when moored – having to find which way is north and then the base station won’t talk to the computer . . . a pain but it is a useful hobby – see weather.vivatek.co.ukA good buy these solar panels – they have more than paid for themselves – we reckon, on the back of an envelope, that they would have to generate 32,000Ah to balance their cost when compared to running the engine. Well, we’re over 35,000Ah now and going strong. A good installation from Onboard Solar, by Tim Davies.A neighbour – two boats in fact – the wee one at the bow was a rowing boat on the Thames. Now rescued and converted. It has a 5 hp engine and is very useful for a run to the shops as you can turn it around quite easily.