Last night Nico brought back the Karcher pressure spray and the Karcher wet/dry vacuum, so now I have no excuse for not getting to work. Since it is raining outside this morning, I will do the bilge draining this morning and the deck cleaning this afternoon, when hopefully the sun will have appeared.

The bilge under the galley floor needs to be drained because there is about 5cm of water there. Iain Noble says it would be from condensation on the inside of the metal hull that has accumulated over winter from cooking steam and body perspiration when the barge was occupied. So I will drain it all out today and check that it doesn’t reappear over summer (which would indicate more than just condensation as a cause of the water). The Karcher wet-dry vacuum does a great job at this, and is much quicker and easier than a ladle and bucket. Just switch it on for 15 seconds until it is pretty full, then take off the top and empty the water down the kitchen sink, which drains directly through the side of the barge (not going through the grey water tank and pump - one of Chris Farmer’s useful modifications on Kimasut). 13 tanks (200 litres) later, the bilge was almost empty, until water flowed from other parts of the bilge requiring 2 more tanks to empty it.

The sun never appeared in the afternoon, so I didn’t get to start cleaning the deck. Instead I kept working on repairing this website. Being the first Monday of the month, it’s Fish’n’Chips night in port at Moissac. But rather than drag table and chairs across to the other side of the port, Miyu and Massa and I had them on the back deck of Kanumbra (Nico is not a big fan of fish’n’chips).