Bartimaeus

Today we had an arrangement to meet up with Rob from Ortomarine to try to resolve some of our outstanding issues.  We set off from last night’s mooring after breakfast, mindful of having agreed to be in Droitwich for “the afternoon”.

The locks were familiar by now.  The gates are very heavy but the paddles turn fairly easily.  We got through them without incident.  At one point I thought I was seeing a strip of metal ripped off the bow, but it turned out to be a rust coloured leaf.

We were through all the locks when Rob phoned to suggest a rendezvous point.  This was a private mooring for a community narrowboat – Pamela May.  We moored up and Rob arrived in his electric van as agreed.

The important job we wanted done was rewiring the HybridMarine controller so that it doesn’t cut out.  This mysterious problem was recently diagnosed as happening only when the toilet is flushed.  It turns out that the power draw of the macerator was enough to cause the controller to reset – it was even more likely to trip if the kettle was on.  Rob has rewired it to take its power from a different battery.  Let’s hope that resolves it.

A number of minor issues in the engine room needed attention – mostly caused by a mix of negligence and inexperience.  I’ve resolved to be more vigilant in future.  Unfortunately while down there, Rob sat on a plastic box and broke it off its mount – another job to do…

By the time he’d finished it was getting dark.  We only had a few boat lengths to get to a proper mooring, so we put the tunnel light on, and drove very slowly over.  Half way across, the light went out!  Luckily I could still see where I was going well enough to get neatly on to the pontoon.  But it seems we now have a new problem – no tunnel light.