Easter eggs for Brandy Pad

• Things we find

We have finally returned to the boat. After five months, we at long last hope to repair the bow thruster. A bit of a surprise was waiting for us when we arrived. Hiding away under the seats at the very bow of the boat, we discovered this:

Easter eggs – and Mom.

Clearly we don’t want to disturb her any more than we have to, but I can’t help wondering what she is going to do once her eggs hatch. The well at the bow is deep – almost three feet – with no way out, other than a couple of drain holes. Maybe the ducklings will be able to slip through the them, but I doubt it. Also, the boat is going to be out of the water for the next few days and they will then be another four feet off the ground as well. Hopefully they will not appear until next week, by which time we should be back in the water and we can try and provide a gangway for them to climb up to the gunwales and then jump into the water. I would move the anchor (the large metal bar) out of the way, but I am afraid of damaging the eggs. Mallards are, apparently, well known for nesting in strange places.

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You never know what…..

• Things we find

….you are going to see. In this case, alongside us in Salthouse Dock, Liverpool! I had heard they were here, then we saw proof:

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Ice Petals

• Things we find

A week and a half ago Helen and I were discussing how it looked as though Spring was coming early. Ducks and birds were getting frisky and we were seeing the first flowers blooming. How wrong that was.

It was rather windy as well as snowy last night and the marina we are temporarily moored in was rather choppy. Surprisingly it has not yet frozen over, probably because of the waves. Look carefully at this photo:

Ice petals

Where the branches meet the water, “ice petals” have formed. We think this is caused by the same waves. The top of the wave wets the branch and the damp area freezes. When the next wave comes along, it adds to it, then freezes and so on until a complete petal forms. The same thing happens to the hull of the boats that don’t have any heating and to the supports for the pontoons we are moored to.

The strong winds last night also had us bouncing around rather a lot. Actually very relaxing when you are going to sleep, but it also caused us to spend around half an hour searching for an annoying bump sound that kept repeating. We searched everywhere for what was banging against the hull. We eliminated all the fenders, the ropes and the mooring itself. In the end, this is what it turned out to be:

Water barrel

This is our emergency water barrel, in case we are frozen in and run out of water in our main tank. Notice it is leaning to one side, because it is actually frozen solid and the barrel has swollen. This is the base:

Swollen barrel 

As the boat rocked in the wind, it was thumping the side of the bow.

In fact the rocking of the boat is very helpful since it keeps the water in the main tank moving. That in turn helps prevent the water from freezing.

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