I'm taking the side panel off because had a shower but can hear the pump just pump it out
Welcome to Cruising Alba
We invite you to join us on our adventure living off-grid and travelling the UK canal network
I'm Myles and I'm Marina
In the last episode we showed you what we do during the day living on a boat on a river we
hope it answered some of your questions so if you missed it go watch it after this one
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We've been on the upper Thames for a lot longer than we thought we would
We can't wait to go back to Oxford and we couldn't have picked a better day for cruising
One thing I really like about the Thames is because it's really wavy
we can actually see the boats ahead of us and those boats they're like in different
parts of the wavy bits of the Thames so then we can actually see where the river goes
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So we've been on the thames two and a half weeks and not once
have we had a lock keeper do the lock for us! We've missed them all it'd be nice to have them though
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We are officially in Oxford
We're at the last lock and it's an electric one. We're also sharing it with canoeists so they are doing all the work
The river opens up just before Port Meadow. This Meadow is an ancient
area of grazing land and according to legend it hasn't been ploughed in 4 000 years
So the land is full of well-contained archaeological remains
and apparently in the 80s and 90s this meadow was known for its free festivals
This is great I love this view This is the best view ever
So what do you think about the sailing boat coming close? Yeah it got really close isn't it?
It was quite cool seeing it that that up close I did think he was gonna crash into us
It would have been funny if they did! You were filming it so yeah I was kind of hoping for it
Yeah nice spot, great spot! We were looking for this when we got to Oxford but we couldn't find
a free pontoon or anywhere to moor up
Now we're by the pub it's yeah it's a pub mooring so that means we've got to go to the pub which
tough I know it's better than paying for parking, isn't it?
We went to the pub for a taste of normality
but we were blown away by how special the garden looked inside! We also brought a map
with us so we can map all of the places and the dates where we stayed at
There was somewhere else then...
Wow Port Meadow introduced us to one of the best spots on the Thames to see the sunset. The wide
open sky is everywhere and it was as if the river was gently putting out the fire of the setting sun
Hi is that Jason? Hi I'm just having a look at your Seagull outboard on gumtree
would you be able to deliver it if we paid a bit extra?
So i'm getting an outboard it's a vintage engine - a Seagull apparently
I know you're not going to enjoy this but I'm going to get loads of fun out of it
What I want Jason to do is bring me a jerry can of petrol and some two-stroke oil
We need to find a new mooring spot we can't stay on this pontoon any longer so we're jumping in a
dinghy and going around the corner to see what's available and because the dinghy engine is being
delivered today this might be our last row You're not going past the petrol station by any chance?
So dinghy engine, oil and petrol are being delivered within the hour. In an hour? This it the last row
We've just found a spot so we're going back straight away
The mooring we just found was pretty much behind us so Myles reversed the boat all the way there
She looks good darling and we've got our own beach!
So our new dinghy engine has just been delivered to the car park of the pub... Oh god!
What do you think? It's cute! What do you think?
Pretty loud! You didn't think it was fast? No. Better than rowing!
You manifested it really quickly
Yeah you literally talked about in the morning, looked it up and now you've got it
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We're pretty far away, luckily we've got oars with us but that's it.That's it!
Part two. I didn't think i'd be rowing this quickly again
Maybe just bring petrol with us next time Well okay, so this new engine sits pretty
heavy at the back of the boat. In order to row more efficiently we had to change places
So with the engine pretty loud we can no longer call it Zender
It's now called the Blender. It's not called the Blender. It is Blender!
Yeah a flipping loud tender - Blender. It's a loud tender.
Tell us what you think in the comments Blender or something actually interesting! Or Tender McTender Face
Come on we can do better than that! Afternoon! today we saw a grasshopper jumping on our roof and it's 9:30pm
and it's still there. So I think it needs saving we're gonna go and rescue it. So here it is. Is he moving?
Come on! There you go! It's nice to see that river is enjoyed by many different people so a little
price to pay for staying in this beautiful spot is being in a public place where everyone comes for a
picnic or a party. We're going to have tea and watch a movie so I'm going into the bedroom to set up
lights
One of the perks of living on a boat is being able to practice yoga with an incredible
ever-changing view and this particular spot is even more amazing. If i wake up early enough
I can spot loads of bunnies running around on the grass all around our boat
I'm taking the side panel off because I had a shower but can't
hear the pump to pump it out. Had a look outside and the outlet is dry and where's the
water?
How strange what I was expecting would be a little pump there, the water goes in, goes
into the pump and it shoots it out the side of the boat. Now from what I could see here
we've got the pipe drain and a pipe that comes all the way down here and I can't see anything
that goes out the side of the boat even though the water leaves from the side of the boat
From my experience geese, ducks and swans don't like salad but I keep trying
I'm going into the bathtub to have a look at the water pump to see if I can understand anything
On narrowboats the drain is located below the water level and that's why you need an
extra pump to get the shower water out That's the pump that is broken. Alba is almost 30 years old
so things like that are kind of expected After cleaning the filter out I tried running
the water through but the pump didn't start. Our understanding of water pumps
is pretty limited so we're going to let the professionals deal with it this time
We can't be happier that we're on the river right now
and until the water pump is fixed we can have our showers
in the Thames. It makes sense to go for a run first though so the water wouldn't seem that cold
Plus I wanted to find that rope swing that we saw from the water on the way here
Next time we're welcoming guests on Alba, a bunch
of friends that we haven't seen since lockdown started
Little did we know that a quiet weekend on a river will bring big changes to their lives
A huge thank you to all of you for watching If you just found us welcome on board please
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it really helps us to continue making these videos for you every week. See you in the next one!