Berkhamsted

I’ve been a bit poorly again you know and of course it’s taken him sometime to discover what’s wrong with me. Nothing is ever quick these days!

For some rime I’d been leaking water into my bilge. It’s been clean fresh water and the Skipper’s been pumping out the bilge beneath the Shower room every few days. Having had a new calorifier fitted only two winters ago, he thought it must have been leaking from there. Somebody had given me a loose fitting or something. But nothing seemed to be wet in that area so he was stumped.

He had no idea bless him!

Well, as you know, he’s none too bright really. He thought he’d just carry on pumping out the bilge until something else happened that would give him new ideas.

So just as we were approaching Cowroast that happened.

When he turned off a tap after use, the freshwater pump in the forepeak didn’t. ….

switch off I mean, at all, and from then on he had to remove the pump fuse after every time he used water to get it to stop.

Well what an inconvenient way of living. And it wasn’t very pleasant for me either not knowing what was wrong.

In the end his tiny brain ticked over and he got Janis to have a look in the water tank locker behind the forepeak. …….. She’s a lot smaller than him you see and guess what she found ….. wetness all around the fresh water pump. Goodness knows how long it’d been like that, but obviously the pump had been leaking for sometime and the water draining back into the Shower Room Bilge.

Well he took me into Cowroast Marina then and a lovely young man called Darren came aboard to confirm that, yes the Old Chap would have to fork out some cash to have the job done.

Unfortunately the chandlery at the Marina didn’t have a replacement in stock so we had to wait a day for the new pump to be delivered and fitted. The Skipper had decided to have installed a larger size pump with an accumulator and now they’ve been fitted, everything is absolutely wonderful. The shower has more force to keep him clean and the whole of the toilet pan is washed due to the extra pressure, which is wonderful.

We’re tied up in Berkhamsted at the moment. My bottom’s on the mud but I don’t mind. That’s okay. It’ll give him plenty to do to get me off when we leave.

Keep the old boy busy is what I say.