Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part Five)

Guess what came in the middle of the night?

That's right, rain. Lots and lots of rain.

We woke up in the morning to grey skies and sheets of rain pounding the boat.

It wasn't going to ease-up anytime soon.

We headed to the St. Ives Lock, where we found ourselves in a queue. I went on the deck and looped a rope around a cleat, to hold our spot in the line. Even though I was wearing a rain jacket, it was so windy that the rain was blowing sideways and I was soaked through to my underwear as I was stood holding the rope.

It was miserable.

After speaking with other boaters, we found out that the river was flooded and that it would be dangerous to continue.

It was without a doubt, the best news that I received on the entire trip.

Dan called the weekend emergency line for the Bridge Shipyard in Ely and explained our situation. It took a few hours to sort out, but we were directed to bring the boat to a shipyard in St. Ives.

The owner of the boat company drove over and picked Dan up, so that Dan could get our car from Ely. Zoe and I gleefully packed up our luggage. The owner was going to be driving the boat back to Ely, so we left him all of our unused groceries. This was another piece of good news, as packing up the groceries would have been a huge hassle and we would have likely thrown much of it out. I hope that he used it, but even if he didn't, at least we didn't have to bother with the clean up.

I was so happy to get out of spending a third night on the boat. The whole time that we were packing up, I was thinking about the warm shower that I was going to take and how were were going to be sleeping in a comfortable hotel bed, that was dry and didn't have spiders or mold. Heaven.

Boating holidays are not for everyone. They are certainly not for me. Truthfully, I can't imagine who would like them. If you're reading this and you're a fan of boating holidays, please leave a comment and let me know what you like about them. I'm genuinely curious!

Here is the apocalyptic sky as we were leaving St. Ives.

It rained off and on during our drive back to Newbury.

On a previous trip to England, we ate at a Little Chef, which is kind of like a English version of Denny's. It was terrible. Maybe I was still basking in my post-boat glow, but our lunch at Little Chef wasn't too bad this time. They even gave us a whole handful of complimentary lollipops when we paid our bill. Score.

The rain had stopped when we were passing the legendary Silverstone Circuit. It was late in the afternoon, but since my stepson, Felix, is such a huge fan of race cars, we thought that it couldn't hurt to try to see the track.

We went to the gift shop and a nice employee told us that there was a race going on and that if we asked the guard, he might let us watch. We went to the guard, prepared with a story of a little kid and his dreams of racing, but the guard just waved us through without a hassle. We arrived in time to see the last race of the day and we were the only visitors in the stands. The whole stadium was empty, except for those people directly involved in the race. We couldn't believe our luck!

The track is enormous and when the cars whizzed by us, it was deafening. The best part was watching how excited Felix was to see his first race. He was transfixed.

We continued to the Hilton Newbury, where we traded in our last night on the boat, for an extra night in a family suite.

Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part Three)

After a night of pouring rain and falling spiders, we awoke to discover that a neighbor had moored behind us.

We both had the same problem, our stakes that we had pounded into the dirt the previous evening, were now underwater. The neighbor was able to pull his out without jumping off of his boat.

Ours were not loose enough and Dan had to jump into the mud. What you can't see in this picture are the cow patties floating in the water. I think Dan successfully avoided them, but it was a gross way to kick off our morning.

At least it wasn't raining. It was just bitterly cold. Icy and windy.

We had two choices. We could either deal with the smell or the cold. The mold was the bigger problem, so we opened up the retractable roof in the main cabin and aired out the boat. All bundled up, we continued down the river.

The clouds were amazing.

Thank goodness it wasn't raining, as we had to go under a very low bridge that we wouldn't have cleared with our roof up.

When we reached our first lock and there was a line. Only one boat can go into this lock at a time and the lock operator was on his break.

Rather than waiting to go through, we moored the boat and jumped off in search of lunch. We received directions from the oldest man on the river. This wasn't a vacation boater. He lived on his boat and by the looks of it, that boat had been moored there for a long time. He was the real deal. Helpful, but crabby and weather-worn.

His directions were roughly...

1. Walk up the steep metal bridge.

2. Go under a hole in the rusted gate.

3. Walk down a hill filled with stinging nettles.

4. You'll find the town after a half-mile walk on an unpaved busy road.

We are an adventurous family! We like a little danger and discomfort thrown into our holidays!

Here is a picture of the old guy with Dan and the kids. He asked for our help with his boat after we returned from our lunch. Although a scary walk, his directions had been solid, so the favor was repaid.

The small town of Earith ending up being a great place to stop for lunch. Although, I'd recommend going through the lock first and finding a proper place to moor on the other side.

In Earith, we ate lunch at the Old Riverview Tea Rooms & Country Kitchen.

The Old Riverview was a real find. It was clean and modern, with a wonderful afternoon tea spread. The scones were enormous and fresh. They even whipped up pasta with butter for the kids. We were seated right next to the cakes. Mouthwatering!

With bellies full of yummy cake, we set out on the treacherous walk back to our boat. On our walk back, I saw this on a house in Earith. I love the cute foxes, but not so much the spider at the top.

This boat was parked near us when we got back. Great boat name!

Next post, our first lock!

Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part One)

This trip, we did the worst activity that I've ever done on a vacation. It was so miserable, that I cried. A lot.

Teased?

Hang on a minute, while I tell you about the cute little pub that we ate lunch at on our way to our misery.

Arriving just as they were opening their doors for lunch, MJ's Cafe and Bar in Suffolk is the epitome of an English pub. It had darts, it had a pool table and it had scruffy looking patrons (us excluded of course). What it really had though, was friendly service and great food. I ordered the daily quiche, which was fabulous. It was served with coleslaw, which sounds strange, but was a good combo. Dan ate a full English breakfast and the kids had pizza and beans on toast. All were happy.

The kids loved that MJ's had a playground. They even had a British style totem pole.

After we left MJ's, it started to rain. Then it started to pour. We should have taken the change in the weather as a sign.

What vacation activity could have been so horrible?

Boating on the canals.

This is where I quickly learned that I'm not a boating holiday type of person. It's like camping, either you love it or hate it. Boating = hate it.

We arrived at the Bridge Boatyard in Ely for our three night rental of Sunquest Cruiser #4. Yes, SUN-quest. The irony is not lost.

After checking in at the office, we were shown aboard our boat. As we entered, there were two men trying to fix a leaking window above one of the beds in the back of the boat. Rain had poured in and soaked the mattress. They used duct tape to fix it, but the mattress was wet to damp the entire weekend. Luckily we didn't need all of the beds, because it was unusable.

I realized when I was going through our pictures that none of these really make it look too bad. What you can't see is the smell. Mold smells and everything aboard was damp and moldy. Dan even found mold behind all of the cushions that we were sleeping on. Ew!!!!

Let me give you a tour of our floating hotel.

Here is the backdoor and the two beds in the back, including the one with the leaking window. I slept on the side that didn't have the leak. It was still damp and moldy. Spider were everywhere and they fell on my face and skittered across me in the middle of the night. I didn't sleep much.

This was our bathroom with the shower. The other bathroom that was near the children's room had a sink and toilet. I did get in the shower to rinse off, but it had mold and was gross. I couldn't manage to stay in it long enough to wash my hair.

Our kitchen had a mini fridge and a stove. It was stocked with basic utensils and kitchen gadgets. I have no complaints about how the boat was stocked, but I personally found it difficult to use the kitchen on the boat. The cabinets were so full of kitchen items, that there was very little storage for our groceries.

The movement of the boat made me nervous to use the stove and it was a pain to clean dishes in the small sink. We had gone to Waitrose and stocked up on groceries, planning to cook on board, but quickly scrapped that idea and only did breakfast and snacks.

The one good part about boating, was stopping at pubs along the canal. It was relatively easy to eat out for all of our meals. Unless you're on a really strict budget, I wouldn't recommend cooking on the boat.

Dan and the kids slept in an triangle shaped alcove in the front of the boat.

Our living room doubled as the dining room and was the same area that had the steering wheel. When we had sun, we were able to retract the roof over this area of the boat. This was also the part of the boat where the ants liked to invade!

My favorite part of the boat is this hole.

In this picture were are being given a lesson in daily maintenance checks. We were supposed to clean the filters in this hole twice a day, morning and night. The filters get clogged with river muck from green plants that cover the water. Twice a day sounds nice...try several times a day as the boat kept coming close to over-heating. Dan would have to stop the motor and hand the filter to me, as I ran to the back of the boat to dip it in the water, clean it off and get it back to him, before the boat drifted too far over to the edge. It was frantic team work. Canal muck dripped all over the boat.

During one of the checks, Zoe lost one of her pink crocs down the hole. We never recovered it. The boat ate her shoe.

As the sun was starting to set and rain was coming down in buckets, we headed down the river on our miserable adventure.