Three days to go .. and we’re on a 45 degree tilt.

Only three more days left on the boat and we’re drastically re-prioritising what is absolutely necessary for the 5000mileproject. We’re surrounded by half packed boxes of books, tools and clothes. Lista Light, our old 77 year old lady (wooden boat) has been our only home for the last four years and it is amazing what stuff we have managed to winkle into her 50ft recesses.

The problem is, the last time we left her we returned to a grotto. Literally water running off everything, great glittering beads dangled from the “ceiling” and an attractive green-silver slime mould covering.

This time it won’t be 6 weeks, it will be a year. So we are stripping her of everything and storing it at a local friend’s farm. Dave has been blasting holes in the deck and fitting glass prisms to let light in and has made a Louvre door, so hopefully, this time there will be more air for the old duck to breath.

Updates and amendments of the website are falling by the wayside. We still need to research the method we’ll be using for the “Mega Transect” survey and the final trailer is yet to be constructed, but our kit is more or less assembled in the shower.

Our chief concern is whether Lista will still be afloat when we return. Dave is working on the solar panels for the multiple backup pumps he’s rigged up and two lovely friends will come and check her every week or so.

The only hitch we hadn’t for seen was the water draining out of the back river that we are currently sitting in.

Yesterday morning, I was updating the “BigToe Classroom” pages of the website when my papers started to slip off the table. Very gradually, over the next couple of hours things started to slide and thump to “starboard”. I carried on working on the wonk, until 12 midday, when the angle was so vertiginous that we could barely stand up. We worked on the river bank for a while, but with no power eventually abandoned it all, went for a run and moved bed to the starboard side.

During the night, there were a couple of creaks. The feeling of, “not having to battle to prevent ourselves from rolling down the hill,” subsided and she started to right herself. Finally the water has come back, the mist is rising, frost covers everything and we can work!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday morning, I was updating the BigToe website when my papers started to slip off the table. Very gradually over the next couple of hours things started to slide and thump to “starboard”. I carried on working on the wonk, until 12 midday, when the angle was so vertiginous that we could barely stand up. We worked on the river bank for a while, but with no power eventually abandoned it all, went for a run and moved bed to the starboard side.

During the night, there were a couple of creaks. The feeling of “not having to battle to prevent ourselves from rolling down the hill” subsided and she started to right herself. Finally the water has come back, the mist is rising, frost covers everything and we can work!