On 3 August, 2014, I arrived on a train from Paris at Tracy Sancerre, a small country station in France’s Loire Valley. I had never been to rural France before, but occasion had presented itself, and as I try always to do, I had seized the opportunity. For one month, nestled perfectly between my two month tour of Europe and my two week cruise back to North America, I would play skipper on a canal boat moving from Sancerre to Baye along the Canal Lateral a La Loire and the Canal du Nivernais.
It was by luck that I had come land such a position. Poking around on the internet always does turn up the most interesting opportunities. I found Janet and Maurice, the English owners of the ‘Wild Goose’ on which I would be employed, on a workaway website. Their listing was spare, compared to many, but the position perfect to a tee. I had purported for years that I would one day live on a boat, and I take great pride in differentiating between assertions of “I will” and “I would like.” This had occasioned me to considering learning to sail in my free month, but sailing lessons are expensive. This workaway, on the other hand, would include not only free lessons on the intricacies of running canal boat, but room and board to boot.
Only later did I learn that my inquiry about the position came only days after two German girls had cancelled, and hours after a young man had asked about the opening as well. Janet, it seems, thought me a better fit. I called her from Venice so that we might talk out the particulars, and all of a sudden I had a job.
Maurice met me at the station with David, a fellow boater and invaluable friend because David owned a car. We set off from the station for the canal, and thus my story began. It is not a story that can be told chronologically, or at least I am disinclined to try, and so it is that you will receive it bit by bit, topic by topic, until my narrative facilities have been exhausted. For now, however, let us be contented with a description of the boat.
Wild Goose is a 42 foot, single story canal boat, built in 1980 for the Norfolk Broads in England but moved to the canals of France sometime hence. Janet and Maurice haven’t much information beyond that. The gentleman they bought it off, it seems, was not what one might call forthcoming. They’ve owned the vessel for eight years now though, and whatever its provenance, it is now undoubtedly theirs.
The inside of the boat, about ten feet across and six feet high, is split into six distinct rooms. At the front behind the bow is what I would call the living room, though it also functions as the bridge. Taking up the whole ten feet across and about twelve feet in the front of the boat proper, it consists of all of the driving aparatae, the living area, the dining area, and a fair bit of storage. Facing the front of the boat from the doorway, the television sits on your left atop a series of shelves and cupboards. On the right is a folding table, hooked to the wall, with a cupboard and a clock on the wall above. Behind the table along the wall is a long bench, stretching the length of the room and meeting the front bench at a right angle. This front bench looks forward through the windshield, the front seat as it were when the boat is in motion. It is broken in the middle by a walkway that leads through a door to the bow. The ignition, throttle, and wheel sit in a column on the left. The right hand bench plays host to a box of English books for exchange with other sailors as well as a number of potted plants.
Directly behind the living room is a long corridor running the rest of the boat’s thirty feet. It contains along the port side what amounts to a kitchen; a long counter top over a length of cabinets with a sink at one end and a small gas stove at the other. There is a toaster and an electric kettle, as well as device labeled ‘Brazilian coffee press.’ By my account it would be French, but that’s hardly exotic enough to sell in its own country. I was also recently promised that there is a blender somewhere for sauce making, but I have yet to lay eyes on it. There is a generator on-board somewhere to run these devices, but as it takes petrol, which is expensive, we only use them when docked and plugged in to shore power.
Across from the far end of the kitchen counter stands a gigantic box, housing the engine, with shelves of spices and mugs mounted one the wall above. Beyond that, just before the hallway ends in a door that leads out to the stern, are two small rooms, one on either side. Once upon a time, both were restrooms. Today, the one on the port side has been converted to a garden shed with all manner of boxes and shelves and plants. The starboard room is still a restroom, with a shower on the left, a toilet on the right, and a wash basin just across. Allow me, for a moment, to digress from my description of the boat to explain how these contraptions might work.
The keel of the boat contains three large tanks, one for diesel fuel, one for washing water, and the bilge that collects run off. The water tank holds up to 500 liters and is connected to a pump that runs off a battery. There is only hot water when the engine his been running, but for small amounts the electric kettle may be used as well. The toilet, for its part, does not flush. It must be pumped by hand and then refilled with water. Though there is a mechanism for refilling it with canal water, that water is where the pumped waste is disposed. As such, we use a pitcher and refill from the sink. The shower drains only on demand, and then with a very loud pump. For both this reason and to conserve water, showers consist mostly of a few short rinses. As an alternative, I quickly took to sponge bathing and washing my hair with kettle water in the sink, not that either are strictly pleasant.
The two remaining starboard rooms currently function as cabins. As the guest, and a lady, I have been given the captain’s cabin at the front of the boat. It consists of two large pieces of foam set atop a drawer filled wall to wall box taking up two thirds of the room. When I sit or lay atop them, I sink right through, but considering the other cabin it is the lap of luxury. The rest of the room is just a small space for changing and opening the drawers. There is a miniature closet set in the opposite wall with hooks on the outside of the door. Between the far window and the standing space is a small bedside counter with a towel bar across it. There is a bookshelf mounted over the bed. They may not be the most comfortable quarters, but at least I wake up with a spectacular view most mornings.
It was by luck that I had come land such a position. Poking around on the internet always does turn up the most interesting opportunities. I found Janet and Maurice, the English owners of the ‘Wild Goose’ on which I would be employed, on a workaway website. Their listing was spare, compared to many, but the position perfect to a tee. I had purported for years that I would one day live on a boat, and I take great pride in differentiating between assertions of “I will” and “I would like.” This had occasioned me to considering learning to sail in my free month, but sailing lessons are expensive. This workaway, on the other hand, would include not only free lessons on the intricacies of running canal boat, but room and board to boot.
Only later did I learn that my inquiry about the position came only days after two German girls had cancelled, and hours after a young man had asked about the opening as well. Janet, it seems, thought me a better fit. I called her from Venice so that we might talk out the particulars, and all of a sudden I had a job.
Maurice met me at the station with David, a fellow boater and invaluable friend because David owned a car. We set off from the station for the canal, and thus my story began. It is not a story that can be told chronologically, or at least I am disinclined to try, and so it is that you will receive it bit by bit, topic by topic, until my narrative facilities have been exhausted. For now, however, let us be contented with a description of the boat.
Wild Goose is a 42 foot, single story canal boat, built in 1980 for the Norfolk Broads in England but moved to the canals of France sometime hence. Janet and Maurice haven’t much information beyond that. The gentleman they bought it off, it seems, was not what one might call forthcoming. They’ve owned the vessel for eight years now though, and whatever its provenance, it is now undoubtedly theirs.
The inside of the boat, about ten feet across and six feet high, is split into six distinct rooms. At the front behind the bow is what I would call the living room, though it also functions as the bridge. Taking up the whole ten feet across and about twelve feet in the front of the boat proper, it consists of all of the driving aparatae, the living area, the dining area, and a fair bit of storage. Facing the front of the boat from the doorway, the television sits on your left atop a series of shelves and cupboards. On the right is a folding table, hooked to the wall, with a cupboard and a clock on the wall above. Behind the table along the wall is a long bench, stretching the length of the room and meeting the front bench at a right angle. This front bench looks forward through the windshield, the front seat as it were when the boat is in motion. It is broken in the middle by a walkway that leads through a door to the bow. The ignition, throttle, and wheel sit in a column on the left. The right hand bench plays host to a box of English books for exchange with other sailors as well as a number of potted plants.
Directly behind the living room is a long corridor running the rest of the boat’s thirty feet. It contains along the port side what amounts to a kitchen; a long counter top over a length of cabinets with a sink at one end and a small gas stove at the other. There is a toaster and an electric kettle, as well as device labeled ‘Brazilian coffee press.’ By my account it would be French, but that’s hardly exotic enough to sell in its own country. I was also recently promised that there is a blender somewhere for sauce making, but I have yet to lay eyes on it. There is a generator on-board somewhere to run these devices, but as it takes petrol, which is expensive, we only use them when docked and plugged in to shore power.
Across from the far end of the kitchen counter stands a gigantic box, housing the engine, with shelves of spices and mugs mounted one the wall above. Beyond that, just before the hallway ends in a door that leads out to the stern, are two small rooms, one on either side. Once upon a time, both were restrooms. Today, the one on the port side has been converted to a garden shed with all manner of boxes and shelves and plants. The starboard room is still a restroom, with a shower on the left, a toilet on the right, and a wash basin just across. Allow me, for a moment, to digress from my description of the boat to explain how these contraptions might work.
The keel of the boat contains three large tanks, one for diesel fuel, one for washing water, and the bilge that collects run off. The water tank holds up to 500 liters and is connected to a pump that runs off a battery. There is only hot water when the engine his been running, but for small amounts the electric kettle may be used as well. The toilet, for its part, does not flush. It must be pumped by hand and then refilled with water. Though there is a mechanism for refilling it with canal water, that water is where the pumped waste is disposed. As such, we use a pitcher and refill from the sink. The shower drains only on demand, and then with a very loud pump. For both this reason and to conserve water, showers consist mostly of a few short rinses. As an alternative, I quickly took to sponge bathing and washing my hair with kettle water in the sink, not that either are strictly pleasant.
The two remaining starboard rooms currently function as cabins. As the guest, and a lady, I have been given the captain’s cabin at the front of the boat. It consists of two large pieces of foam set atop a drawer filled wall to wall box taking up two thirds of the room. When I sit or lay atop them, I sink right through, but considering the other cabin it is the lap of luxury. The rest of the room is just a small space for changing and opening the drawers. There is a miniature closet set in the opposite wall with hooks on the outside of the door. Between the far window and the standing space is a small bedside counter with a towel bar across it. There is a bookshelf mounted over the bed. They may not be the most comfortable quarters, but at least I wake up with a spectacular view most mornings.
Maurice’s cabin is much smaller than mine, with room taken out to make space for the engine, as well as one of the two batteries on board. Though it used to house a double bed, he converted half of the bed into a tool shed. He sometimes sleeps on the other half in a sleeping bag on a thin mattress, though I have since found spare linens, so the sleeping bag must be by choice. When it's particularly hot out, however, he sometimes moves said sleeping bag into the living room to sleep on the bench. The room smells more than usual the next morning, and I have to take care not to emerge until he's dressed, but having given me his bed I can hardly begrudge him the shift.
Up a ladder and on top of the boat is a small sun deck with Maurice’s garden and a couple plastic chairs. He has warned that the chairs may no longer be sturdy, so we haven’t used them yet, but the idea is still appealing. There are riggings past the sun deck for screens, so that one might sunbathe in private on top of the boat. On the front, there is a French ‘courtesy flag,’ flown because of the country in which we are sailing. On the back waves a red flag with the British Union Jack in the top left-hand corner, to show where the boat is registered. Just below this flag is a swimming platform. For reasons associated with my explanation of the toilet, it is not much used, and usually serves as storage for Maurice’s bike.
It is an interesting life on board. Cramped, but not unmanageable. It’s nice too to have a bit of a routine again. I’m sure the intricacies of that routine will be revealed over the course of this blog, but until then I will leave you with the two most important rules of boating, taught to me the very first day.
1. Do everything slowly.
2. No, slower than that.
Up a ladder and on top of the boat is a small sun deck with Maurice’s garden and a couple plastic chairs. He has warned that the chairs may no longer be sturdy, so we haven’t used them yet, but the idea is still appealing. There are riggings past the sun deck for screens, so that one might sunbathe in private on top of the boat. On the front, there is a French ‘courtesy flag,’ flown because of the country in which we are sailing. On the back waves a red flag with the British Union Jack in the top left-hand corner, to show where the boat is registered. Just below this flag is a swimming platform. For reasons associated with my explanation of the toilet, it is not much used, and usually serves as storage for Maurice’s bike.
It is an interesting life on board. Cramped, but not unmanageable. It’s nice too to have a bit of a routine again. I’m sure the intricacies of that routine will be revealed over the course of this blog, but until then I will leave you with the two most important rules of boating, taught to me the very first day.
1. Do everything slowly.
2. No, slower than that.
so good to hear from you.....have missed your blogging!
ReplyDeleteXOXOXO