Friday, July 31, 2015

Paddington news

As you might have guessed the photo of the Sshh label in my last post was taken in Paddington basin, just below St Mary’s hospital. There’s always something to see in Paddington.  Last time I was up there this fine fellow was attempting to shovel up the duckweed in his special boat, but it seemed to me it was growing faster than he was clearing!

duckweed

Round the corner in the basin the moorings were all full and the odd disappointed boat(er) was still arriving.  I sat in the Little Venice office waiting for a meeting to start and a lady came in asking where she could tie up for the night.  They couldn’t really help her apart from telling her to go back towards the west and see what she could find.  Hmmm.

At the meeting, there was some better news.  This winter, they will not be renting out winter mooring permits for central London, so the (more than) half of Paddington basin that is usually let out will be freed up for visiting boats, as will a few more spaces in Little Venice.  As long as the enforcement team keep boats from overstaying, we might have a chance of tying up there when we visit this winter.  We are once again moving Herbie south for the winter just so we can do stuff like that.

Meanwhile we’re off on Sunday, for our annual camping trip to Shropshire, but en route we’re dropping in at Herbie to see how the loo fan is doing and to pick up some bits we need for camping.  Normally I make it a rule to switch the batteries off at the isolators when we leave the boat, but this time I left the power on to keep the fan running.  At a current draw of 0.06 amps I assume the solar panel will keep pace without trouble.  We have resealed the exit tube from the fan to outside the boat, but I’m not yet convinced that a tiny amount isn’t still getting into the space between the hull and the lining.  Fingers crossed.

4 comments:

nb Chance said...

Well done Neil, we were thinking of not coming back to London this winter due to the lack of mooring so may well book into a marina near again as the odd weekend in London was the point of it all, Just hope they dont change their minds on mooring in paddington and decide they would prefer to charge and make money? Thanks again

Vallypee said...

I can't comment usefully on the mooring situation, but have a great camping weekend! I hope the sun is kind to you.

Anonymous said...

That's a really informative post, though we won't be bringing Indigo Dream back to the southern hemisphere until 2017!!!!

I was surprised to see the duckweed in Paaddington, haven't seen it that bad for years - isn't that what the infernal underwater blowers were meant to prevent??

Missing our southern friends - hope that you and Kath are thriving :-)

Sue, nb Indigo Dream

Dave said...

We arrived at Paddington Basin a couple of weeks back to meet up with our daughter and son-in-law and take them on the "Thames Experience" from Limehouse to Brentford. There was nowhere in the basin so we moored over the bubbles. The noise inside the boat brings on premature insanity, but we were still up at 11pm when a couple of boats left, so we grabbed a prime spot outside the station entrance.

We found out later that the "continuous" cruisers in London ring each other late at night when they're ready to swap moorings. I don't know how I'll live with the guilt of having messed-up their system...

Dave
NB Sophie-Jane No.2
Harefield Marina