Out of the Ice

About 2 weeks ago at Blisworth after going back to the services block to fill the water tank and dump the rubbish the engine decided to overheat.
Mmmm! now having looked at that sentence and noticed it makes no mention of the toilet cassette emptying I need to mention the the composting toilet. Ok so if you feel the need to skip  stop here and start to read from under the hose pictures below. We know of people very interested in the Airhead hence the following.
Now all good gardeners will have a compost heap and will know it takes a while to break down the stuff on your pile of leaves etc. The airhead toilet we installed is we think fantastic with no smell and no heavy smelly cassettes to empty and rinse out.
Now we need to empty ours about every 4/5 weeks. These toilets were originally designed for U.S. sailboats that with occasional use and long periods moored in harbour gave the contents time to break down to a dry crumbly matter.
So as ours is used continually the disposal is a bit more than tipping out the contents on the garden. It can be emptied the same as a cassette but as it won`t tip out easily this could be a problem for others in the elsan queue.
We found the old `bucket and chuck it` the best way. Now what this means folks either side of the pond is dig a decent depth hole and bury it. This is usually done when we are moored way out in the countryside away from the towpath.
I have said it before but once again, there is no smell with this system as the liquids are separated from the solids and the continual drawing of air through the toilet starts the composting cycle.



The above was an update for the people who have showed an interest.
OK the overheating engine, a quick check while topping up the water failed to spot the hose pictured on the right as the damage was  on the under side. All I saw was the hose on the left (ignore the horizontal cuts for easy removal). Sitting in the spares box since the boat was new a length of  heater hose. The hose is the engine take off to the Calorfier (hot water tank) and explains why the water has not been as hot lately. The seepage was on to the top of the engine and quickly evaporated leaving me no tell tale puddles on the engine bay floor. Just for ease of not having to bleed it all twice I replaced the return pipe as well. Next time you are close and personal with your engine, ladies it`s a man thing, just check the undersides of your water pipes men. Oh!  take that which way you want.

The Captain brings the boat through the thin ice

The rise in temperatures and heavy rain over the weekend as good as removed all traces of ice from the canal. So we decided to move down the seven Stoke Bruerne locks and cruise to pastures new. Two locks from the bottom it started to rain and having reached the bottom lock the captain (the real one) decided to stop for lunch. As the wind had increased and the rain was still falling the actual second in command (the one who thinks of captaincy) suggested staying the night so here is as far as we travelled but it sure was good to move after being iced in. We did have some nice evenings with Jacquie and Stein, like ducks 2 water and below is a picture they took of Jaq and I while we all walked in the snow.