The Big Freeze!
 
Jeepers, weepers it’s cold! I knew we had a problem when I arrived back on the barge late one night and the thermometer read -2 degrees. That was INSIDE. Unfortunately, we had made a rookie error... forgetting to check how much diesel we had in our tanks. And when your diesel runs out, you have no heating. And when you largely metal boat is sitting in a pile of ice, it has a funny habit of radiating that coldness everywhere. As my physics teacher would have said, this is the zeroth law of thermodynamics holding up, but that is no consolation.
 
To add to our considerable discomfort... the water pipes to the boat were frozen, and a curious device called a pressure switch had decided to pack in. Now I had never even seen this particular device, it was buried behind a mountain of pipes and pumps. But it turns out to be quite important... well ‘crucial’ really. Without the pressure switch making intelligent decisions as to when our pumps should run, they would simply run and run, until they burnt out. So, the long and short of it, was that we could not use the water in our water tank. So, we had no running water... and no heating.
 
Well, it’s alright. We’ll get diesel in a day or two, and the pipes will defrost. It will be character building! Hurrah!!
 
Addendum...
 
Well, it’s 10 days later and my good nature is just starting to crack. The marina can’t deliver diesel as the marina is frozen. Moving a boat in the ice poses a serious hazard to other boats... in particular the ‘white’ boats whose fibre glass would perish against the push of  solid ice. I can hear my old physics teacher talking about it being ‘strong in compression’...
 
So here I am, hugging an electric heater and wearing 3 pairs of socks. The thermometer is showing +2 degrees, so things are improving. In percentage terms, that’s quite a big increase.
 
Addendum 2...
 
I tackled the pressure switch problem. Scotty secured a new one, and I fitted it. It only took an entire day, and a lot of swearing, but I didn’t mind because we would have running water at the end of it all. Some intelligent handyman had positioned the switch in an impossible mess of pipes and other obstacles... so various important stuff had been taken to pieces in order to get to it, and fit the replacement. Anyway, it’s in now. The pumps on. Here comes the water. Lovely stuff, water. Water everywhere. I love it. Hang on, the pumps still on... surely it should be off by now... Still on... and on... and on... and on... and on... Hmmm... oh bugger...! I’m having an Ariston moment.
 
Addendum 3...
 
Okay, so it turns out the pressure switch wasn’t faulty at all. The pipe running to it had clogged up. So my day spent in the engine room was... well a big fat waste of time. Oh well... the joys of barging! Still no water. Still no diesel. At least I’m warmer now because my clothes are soaked in oil from the engine room. I also have a 14 day beard for the first time in my life.
 
Addendum 4...
 
Two weeks later, and we have WATER...!... It matters not that this is because the water pipes have unfrozen of their own accord.... and nothing to do with our engineering skills!
 
Saturday, 3 January 2009