There are different types of boaters (people on boats; not hats!) just like there are different types of road users.
Just like road users, boaters can be prone to a little tribalism, and bit ‘us and them’. Think about how many people complain about Audi or BMW drivers, or ‘White Van Man’. Or how people view drivers of eco cars or the 4×4 driver on the school run. Sometimes people belong to more than one road using group (maybe a lorry driver who gets cross with performance car drivers but enjoys taking the Porsche out at a weekend). Boaters are no different.
River boats come in a variety of styles. From big commercial barges (not too many of them around in the UK) to tiny inflatable boats. On the River Great Ouse we mainly have variations of Cruisers and Narrow Boats. And rowers – the river equivalent of bikes!
Cruisers are generally made of fibreglass, and they vary from roughly 20 feet to around 40 feet in length. They are generally white or cream with an accent colour. Cruisers are usually steered from a steering wheel which is either at the front, back or in the middle!
Narrowboats are the long thin, colourful metal boats that people associate with canals. Most narrowboats are 6’10” (2.08 m) wide and in a variety of lengths, from 20′ (6m) to 80 ‘ (24m). They are generally made of steel and are driven from a pole at the back, called a tiler. A popular choice of narrowboat on a river is a widebeam narrow boat. These have a similar variety of lengths to narrow boats but are wider. Generally, widebeams are between 10’ and 14 ‘ wide which allows more living area. Some widebeams are steered with a tiller, some have a steering wheel. The Big Blue Boat is a 60’x10’ widebeam. (Surely a widebeam narrowboat should be called a medium boat!)
People who have cruisers generally use them for holidays, sometimes very long holidays, but they don’t tend to live on the boat. Narrowboats (and widebeams) are used both as homes and as a holiday boats. Most people who live on their boat have a home mooring, usually in a marina. That makes it easier to get to work and get the kids to school. Others live aboard boaters travel around the canal and river system and don’t have a regular mooring. They are called continuous cruisers.
Boaters are a very friendly bunch and are happy to help each other out and share a drink. But we can still be quite tribal. Cruisers will call narrow boats sewer pipes or baked bean tins! Narrow boaters will call cruisers Tupperware boats or yoghurt pots! This is usually good natured and we use the terms about ourselves (‘I’m on the big blue sewer pipe over there!’ or ‘Mine’s the little Tupperware with the mad dog on board!’). Sewer pipes and Tupperwares need to be careful near each other because a 20-ton steel boat can easily damage the fibreglass. But this is usually totally fine. We all help each other.
The biggest tribalism comes with the liveaboard boaters. I have had people tell me that certain restrictions (mooring limits etc) are designed to put off the liveaboard boaters. I am a liveaboard boater. Why do they want to put me off? I use the pubs/cafes/shops. I only stay at the moorings for the allotted time (48 hrs in a lot of them).
I put my rubbish in a bin- I even recycle! Why don’t they want me? My boat takes up a lot of room- but I don’t travel as much during the school holidays, so there isn’t a problem of space.
On further investigations, it turns out that they don’t mean liveaboards. They mean continuous cruisers. And they don’t seem to have a lot of evidence that continuous cruisers are actually causing a problem.
The rules for continuous cruising are a bit vague.
You must move neighbourhood every 14 days and be travelling to different areas. The Canal and River Trust state that “you must use the boat to genuinely cruise (A to B to C to D rather than A to B to B to A) from place to place and must not stop for more than 14 days in any one place”. It is a bit nomadic, or gypsy like! It is actually quite hard to follow the rules for a long period. It makes it hard to maintain friendships, have a regular GP and work. Continuous cruisers save money because they don’t pay for a mooring, although they have to spend more on diesel because they travel more.
I think people don’t like the idea of someone else getting something for free. The negative view of continuous cruisers stems from a sense that they are getting something for nothing and therefore they aren’t doing things ‘properly’. I also think it has something to do with a lack of understanding. If you (in a house) want clean washing- you pop it in the machine? You jump in the shower to get clean? Get your groceries delivered to the house, or pop to the supermarket?
In a marina, it’s not that different. You have a home base for deliveries- the marina is ‘home’. You can do washing there, shower there, go to work from there.
Although you might be out on your boat most of the time, you still have a home base. If you continuously cruise you don’t have a ‘home’.
You have to find the shops, you can’t go to work- how can life be possible. These people must, therefore, be good for nothing layabouts who want to overstay at moorings and have no respect for anything?
Not so- a lot of continuous cruisers work from home (IT, writers, artists…) or are retired. They don’t need a home mooring and enjoy the variety of moving regularly. In all other respects, they are the same as anyone else! How would you know if a narrow boat is traveling from a home mooring or is continuously cruising? You wouldn’t, unless you asked them!
That brings me to a neat conclusion. Never assume! People are nearly always nice, so talk-ask them! Help each other (especially at locks and moorings). Talk to each other. Respect each other. Don’t assume things about people- lose the preconceptions. And we’ll all be better off for it!
Maybe this would work on the roads, too?
And crows walking on the roof! Scruuunnnccchhhh tap tap tap, screeeeeech, tap schruunnncchhh! The boat creaking and snapping (apparently that is normal and to do with the metal and wood expanding at different temperatures). Filling the water tank without getting wet. Using the inverter to control the electricity, remembering to switch it when we used the marina’s plugin shoreline electricity (as well as remembering to plug it in and much more importantly remembering to unplug it when we went out on the boat). We had to get used to using a pump out toilet. Only using Lidl loo roll (anything else blocked the loo) and trying not to land in the river, geese poo or fling sewage over your head when emptying it. We had to adjust to not always knowing where we were when we awoke. Although I quite like that! Yr Mr BBB did a lot of research into food deliveries and found it was easy enough to get deliveries to a nearby postcode, and it is vital to remember which side the boat is moored or in your food excitement, you can try exit the boat on the water side- not good!
So we bought a chemical toilet. Then we found that the disposal point freezes which means you can’t empty it – so we needed two chemical toilets. They were a lot of work, so we changed to a composting toilet. That is much easier and I will write a post about it soon! 3 toilets in 1 year!
We have appreciated a cafe for breakfast, a lovely ice cream cafe in Rye, and a pub for a sneaky lunchtime half. We also had another look at the beach. It still looks awesome.
A lovely little town just outside Huntingdon. We ate at the eat-in fish and chip shop and drank in the two lovely local pubs. Shandies in the sun. Does life get better? While we were there a boaty friend, 
We avoided the main moorings in town (see 
The next morning we woke up to find the cows very close by. We are used to cows. Not much of a problem for us. I quite like them, they are quite cute. But these cows were very intrigued. They followed Yr Mr BBB as he left the boat. He was very calm and completely ignored them (top tip – best thing to do with cows is to pretend they are not there) and climbed over the stile. The cows became even more interested in us and came over to the boat. Mr BBB and I watched them for a while and decided it was best to move to the mooring outside the pub. Walking through the cows with Cooper the dog wouldn’t be wise. But neither of us really wanted to go out and take out the mooring pins! Mr BBB was brave and removed the front pin – which should allow the front of the boat to move around with the current and loosen the back rope, which we could quickly untie and go. What actually happened was, the current was stronger than we expected. The current moved the front of the boat so far round that it pulled the back rope very tight. Mr BBB is better at working out the physics of water vs boat so he tried to manoeuvre the boat while I stepped off (out of the rear canopy window and into the field that we were trying to avoid) to untie. I couldn’t untie. It was far too tight and the boat couldn’t move nearer to loosen the rope. Mr BBB talked about cutting the rope! 
I like that rope and I am NOT cutting it! So I bashed the pin with the hammer to loosen the earth around it. The pin started to slide, but it was being pulled tight by the boat and I was worried that it might fly out and either hit me, the boat or get caught in the propeller. So I wiggled it slowly until I had it out of the ground enough that the rope loosened and Mr BBB could untie it from the boat-end! The boat, now freed, was now lengthways across the river and about a foot away from the riverbank – no way I could get back on. So I walked through the cow field to meet Mr BBB and the boat at the mooring outside the pub! Which was exactly what we were trying to avoid! Oddly enough the cows disappeared while we were trying to sort out the boat!
Our plan was to travel to St Ives by boat over a few days. We thought the river levels would be fine in March- safe from the ravages of winter. We were wrong! We had survived the cold snap from Storm Emma and The Beast from the East, and when it thawed (straight into the river) Strong Stream Advice was issued, which meant it wasn’t safe to travel by boat. We didn’t have a car, so we had to negotiate public transport. St Neots to St Ives is only 10 miles, as the crow flies. But none of the roads go as the crow flies! By car, it is about 15 miles. By public transport, it is, well, a lot longer!
And we could all join in with the sangria because no one had to drive back!
There was also a young couple who were chatting very loudly with some very strong opinions. They worked together and they were upset about children coughing and sneezing over the products they were selling. They felt it was the parent’s fault for not teaching the children good hygiene and decided that ‘parents like that’ had a choice to take the pill or have an abortion if they didn’t want to put in the effort to teach basic things to their children! Wow- teach your child to use a tissue or have them aborted! Even Hitler didn’t consider that! When the bus arrived I was torn between being glad and disappointed. The loud young couple didn’t get on our bus so I missed the rest of their conversation. But I did get home!
This is a little chemical loo that people often use for camping. It needs emptying more often than the pump out but there are a lot more places to empty it. Most marinas or boatyards have a disposal point as do most campsites. But- as we found- they freeze when it’s cold! So we have two portapotties! After a prolonged freeze/flood period, I found that if I’m very careful I can empty it into a public loo. But I have to be very careful not to make a mess! And I must look rather odd, taking a toilet into a toilet!
Like shapes, people often fit into more than one category. A wooden blue square could be grouped with other squares as well as with blue objects, wooden objects, toys… One person maybe a worker, part of a family, a criminal and a carer. Being in one group doesn’t stop you being in another group. 
I detest coffee. If I were homeless, I’m sure I would still detest coffee! If someone bought me a coffee without asking, it would be a waste and quite frustrating! Asking the person if they would like a drink involves quite a lot of courage (on my part) and seems to be insinuating that I don’t trust the person not spend the cash on alcohol or drugs. I will sometimes have an alcoholic drink when it’s cold. Who am I to tell someone else that they shouldn’t? Maybe I would develop an addictive habit if I walked in the person’s shoes for long? I understand that more money going to drug dealers perpetuates the problem, but I still feel that it isn’t my position to judge. 
We are so complex. We have stripey blue squares, with dots on! And squares with pictures of cats! Not to mention the circles and the triangles..!
We are in the grip of Storm Emma, which is bringing subzero temperatures and plenty of snow.
Currently, I am collecting pine cones and small/ medium pieces of wood to use on the burner. I will Womble around with a bag or a trolley looking for things, wearing my woolly hat, gloves and scarf! The wind has done a great job of blowing bits off the trees ready for me to collect!
