Still in Corbie

Hoo-whee, it was cold today - max 7.7!  And lots of rain in the morning.  The sun made an appearance in the late afternoon but too late to do anything about the ambient temperature.  So that meant a late start to the day :-) 

There was a really nice 14m Dutch barge, French owners, on the dock in front of us, who shared their €2 coin which gives unlimited electricity and water for 4 hours.   They were using the electricity but said we were welcome to use the water.  So we did:  washed clothes, bodies and filled the tanks.  That was yesterday and they left this morning.

We still entertained aspirations of cycling to the Red Baron’s crash site but no, it was just too cold!

So we watched a rather boring MotoGP race instead.  Happy the Rossi won but not worth staying home for.

Some hardy folks had other ideas!

Ian’s contribution:

Got the electricity going now and heater on.  Only 600watts but keeps us nice and cosy.  After 2 days of no sun or engine and plenty of computer time, the batteries are down to 77% so they are happy getting a charge.  Fridge doesn’t use much electricity at this cold temperature.

I am going to fiddle with some iffy wiring this evening.  Our 12v socket for charging tablets and phones, etc, is a bit strange.  When there is a bit more than next to nothing being drawn from the socket the bow thruster springs into life.  Hmmmm…  Discovered that some bright spark in the Netherlands had wired it into the relay for the bow thruster.  Got to remove that and put new wires in on their own fuse.  I’m happy again – can play with wires!

Used 41Gb on our iBoost so far (free wifi) in 48 days.  Lots of TV streaming!  Great piece of kit but a bit temperamental at times.  Orange doesn’t seem to like it too much as they disallow tethering but it is possible to get around it.  Need a signal better than -80db which means we have moved the boat on several occasions (sometimes just a few meters) to get the best signal.  Off to play with wires!