Of Blackwater Troubles

On the first afternoon of my latest trip I moored on March town centre mooring intending an overnight stop after replenishing my stock of food from the local supermarket and a health food shop. The mooring at March has a kink in the middle so I like to tie up near to one end or the other. My preferred spot lies furthest from the bridge, but not quite under a tall, overhanging tree. There is generally enough crap to wash off the boat without adding the guano donated by roosting birds. I try to aim for a straight bit of the mooring where my boat sits nicely next to the concrete apron. The other straight bit is at the other end, almost under the bridge, which is closer to the pub and road noise. If I have to use the bridge end of the mooring I try to pull back to just before the bend, making sure to avoid a broken road drainage pipe because it scrapes the paint off the boat. I don't like to be too close to the bridge because have seen people throw things over the parapet from the pavement to land on any boat moored underneath. So, my preferred bit of the mooring being taken already I aimed for the bridge end and pulled back from the vulnerable point, which was where I moored last night. Not long after I tied up, two more boats arrived and there was enough room for them to sandwich me in, the longer boat took the space on the bend and the shorter one near the bridge. I helped the big boat pull onto the bendy bit. We mardled for a while as I made a fuss of Mabel, their excitable black pooch. They’d come though from Whittlesey and were feeling the effect of the long journey, bearing in mind it's only a long journey if travelling by boat or, I suppose, on foot.

The small market town of March is handy for a few reasons. Shopping for food, diy materials and tools, water tank filling, toilet emptying, bicycle repairs and, if I feel so inclined, a meal at a favourite Nepalese restaurant (other restaurants are, of course, available). Sadly as I was to discover, the health food shop has just gone out of business, so I now face having to go elsewhere or rely on supermarkets for all of the requirements I cannot buy at a farm gate. Just across the road (or under the bridge seen from my perspective) there is access to the large green space of West End Park, where all sorts of fun and frolics can be enjoyed, particularly at festival times.  For anyone so inclined there is the museum and a couple of churches to visit and the rather unusual shopfront to the "fossil museum"! On certain days there is also a small market. Unfortunately the facilities at the sanitation station were still out of action after two months or more. Water is accessible, but it's the Elsan, the chemical disposal point / sluice room offering the facility to empty and rinse out cassette toilets, that I was going to be needing most urgently. It's the only one free to boaters on the Middle Level and is operated by the local council rather than the navigation authority. When I telephoned the council to enquire why it was still not available I was given the runaround by the receptionist and directed to call other numbers that had nothing to do with Fenland District Council. I don't think this was deliberate obfuscation, but it was a clear reflection of the lack of priority given to those of us who rely on the Elsan being operational. We simply don't figure in the council's list of priorities. After four phone calls I spoke to someone back at the council who told me that the closure was due to "vandalism". Having heard this reason used before I queried how vandalism might have happened since the sluice room is only available to boaters who have bought a Yale type key to Middle Level facilities. The person on the other end of the phone asked to me wait while she located an e-mail trail to prove her case concerning the cause of the problem. What she found instead was an exchange of messages between themselves (the Council) and Anglian Water referring to a broken sewage pipe, which had apparently been damaged while building a new public toilet nearby. That would also explain why the new replacement public toilets are still boarded up many months after the pedestrianisation of part of the main street through town has been completed. I can't help but wonder what would happen if any member or officer within the council or the water authority could not empty their toilets at home. I'm pretty sure something would be done about it pdq. In the meantime boat dwellers are told to take an extra hour to go to the nearest marina to use their facilities for which there is, understandably, a charge. This may not be significant in the grand scheme of world affairs, but it seems to be a sign of the times that annoying little people like me are routinely fobbed off with fabrications or deliberate lies. Again, I'm willing to accept that the person I spoke to at the council was simply repeating something they'd heard or been told to say and I am grateful that they were willing to trace the exchange of e-mails between themselves and the water company and accept, eventually, that the excuses they were making for the continued closure were not proven. There is a darker side to the story suggested sotto voce by someone who probably knows more about these issues than I do who had "heard" that the council were hoping that they would not have to spend any money effecting repairs and that no one would complain. Sorry, but now I'm paying for an annual licence I expect to get something for my money. I've already explained how not even a clear passageway along the "Link Route" from the River Nene to the River Great Ouse can be taken for granted.

There was nothing further I could do but try and find another facility once I left Middle Level waters. According to the map there was an Elsan point on the River Nene at Peterborough Embankment, which I hoped to reach within a day or so. 

The following day I set off through the town and stopped outside the marina on a river mooring to pick up some supplies and consult one of the engineers. I stopped outside the marina because the wind was pretty strong and I didn't want to risk turning in the marina basin and hitting another boat. As it happened the man I wanted to speak to was not in that day so I returned to the boat with the notion of heading further along the Link Route towards Whittlesey. I made a rookie error of not securing the centre line when the wind was blowing. I released the rope at the bow and the front of the boat was caught immediately by the wind to be carried out across the river. This pulled my stern ropes so tight that it took me quite a while to free them and by the time I'd managed to do so the boat was actually perpendicular to the landing stage and jammed between both banks. I thought I was going to lose the boat and have to dive in after it! Once I had freed the stern rope I could step on to the stern deck and allow the wind to blow me sideways along the river until I got to a part that was wide enough to employ the engine to bring the boat back under control. Phew! I took the following bit of film after that near misadventure.