PKYo

@PKYo@poweredbygay.social

Liveaboard boater who visits rural inland dales and small towns on a steel narrowboat. Sometimes folks join me. My main boating concerns: canal closures, potable water, fuel, groceries, data reception, brown water¹ pump-outs, and heat. I eat on board, not in pubs. There's music² on board. On the tail end of middle aged. Avoid politics.

I follow people who balance boosts with their own posts about interesting things.

¹ This means what you think.
² Bouncey, age-inappropriate.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

PKYo, to boating

Two very old, grey-haired guys hobbling along the towpath with two very old, grizzled dogs.

Canals are a wonderful community resource – linear parks with water, grass, trees and a path to walk, jog, and cycle on, and to share with boaters.

For boaters, the canal bank and towpath are our garden.

PKYo, to boating

At day's end, I tied up the boat near a Canal & River Trust service shack: water, elsan, toilets and shower.

A shower! 🚿

I hurried from the boat to the CRT building in only my shorts, T-shirt and shoes, towel and soap in hand. (These places lack clothes hooks, so fewer items is better.) They did have a wooden bench, and a disabled grab handle that I used as a towel rack.

PKYo, to boating

Going through a flight of double locks, traditionally boats would be tied together to move more easily between locks.

You don't see it often because newer boaters don't know how, and —oh no— they'd have to talk about something other than the weather. It takes experience, trust and collaboration.

In the photo, one boat is crewed. It is steering both, using only one engine. The other boat crew is operating locks.

#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #locks #broadbeam #double #navigation

PKYo, to boating

Living on a boat with a refillable water tank, I've learned to conserve water.

I wash daily but only shower once a week, because:

  1. It's a waste to run lots of water over your body and then pump it overboard.

  2. Human skin is great at keeping clean and oil-free without any help from Proctor & Gamble IF you let it recover from the chemical abuse of "body wash" etc.

  3. It's environmentally responsible.

PKYo, to boating

The marina down the canal quoted £400 + parts for an engine service. I'm told it's a fair price. I've booked it for Monday, the week after next.

I was also told to keep the old belts that get replaced, in case of a future belt emergency.

Here's the checklist.

PKYo,

@markhughes I don't know how to do it. I wonder if they'll let me watch or claim that's a "health and safety" transgression.

jonobie, to random
@jonobie@social.coop avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    PKYo,

    @jonobie

    And the answer is … ?

    If you're like me and get way too focused on whatever, then: "No."

    Mrfunkedude, to random
    @Mrfunkedude@mastodon.social avatar

    Well, I'm feeling better. Now I just have a bunch of mucus that constantly wants to escape my nose. So tissues are essential.

    I'll spend the rest of #today resting. It's chilly this morning so I made sure to bring a small blanket downstairs to keep my legs warm. Maybe I should ask for an electric blanket for Giftmass? I already have the electric neck warmer.

    Anyway, hope whoever reads this has a great day. Do something fun for me will you?

    PKYo,

    @Mrfunkedude

    My cold has settled in. I'm past the endless-tissue drippy stage. My lungs squeak and moan with every breath.

    My fun thing will be to go out in search of vegetables to eat. 😜

    🍅🍠🥕🌽🫛🫑🍆

    PKYo, to random

    @jon

    You wrote: "even if your booking was made with one financial transaction, you might be left stranded in the case that your journey has multiple tickets from multiple operators".

    I can tell you that I bought 3 return tickets from Wigan to Manchester as ONE transaction, but when the return trains were all cancelled, and I claimed for a partial refund, only 1 claim was accepted; the other two were declined. And I had to fill in 3 separate claims.

    PKYo, to boating

    "Where are you?"

    We rarely moor the boat in one place more than a day or two.

    Guests planning to visit us ask us where we'll be on a certain date.

    "In England." 😄

    Our route's unpredictable due to water restrictions and stoppages—trees fall and block the canal; locks break.

    It can take a mindshift for visitors to process: "One week ahead we'll tell you our target, and the night before we'll send you a digital map pin."

    #boating #narrowboat #canal #CanalLife #boat #guest #travel #map

    PKYo, to boating

    We've reached the Leeds & Liverpool Canal bridge that is biased against boats. Cars take priority during peak hours, and around here the afternoon peak starts at 2:00 pm!

    At 6:00 pm we will resume boating until the wheels come off, hoping to reach Litherland before dark so we're set up to enter Liverpool with tomorrow's convoy.

    #CanalLife #canal #boating #narrowboat #Liverpool #Litherland #bridge #car #traffic

    riversidebryan, (edited ) to random

    It seems like every other day a poll hits the timeline asking about our age bracket and or generation.

    I've been curious lately about this.

    After high school, throughout my time in the Navy and even now, the majority of my IRL straight friends are much younger than myself and my LGBTQIA+ friends are older than myself.

    Is this typical for the LGBTQIA+ community?

    PKYo,

    @PapaBear @riversidebryan

    It's all over the map for me.

    PKYo, to random

    Waiting for a boat in a lock, I see a child playing in the active area, so I ask the woman holding a windlass, "Is he with you?"

    "Yes."

    Making smalltalk, I mention Canal River Trust's census: 5% of live-aboard boaters have children with them.

    "We homeschool," she responds in a defensive tone. "He doesn't need to learn all that stuff, like how to multiply by 10,000. He knows how to buy a can of beans."

    #education #homeschooling #curriculum #DfE #boating #narrowboat #CanalLife #canals #CRT #UK

    PKYo, to rust

    Rust.

    Le sigh.

    PKYo, to random

    It's nonstop birds and hawthorns in bloom, out here in the middle of nowhere, clear of the industrial outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent.

    Spring on the Caldon canal seems to be a few weeks behind the rest of the midlands, judging by what's blooming and the size of moorhen chicks and goose goslings.

    #spring #moorhen #goose #gosling #birdsong #birdcall #hawthorn #canal #CanalLife #Caldon #Stoke #boating #narrowboat #England #UK

    Video looking east at the Caldon canal from the bow of a narrowboat. It's green and lush. On the non-towpath side there's a wooden shed of sorts and a fence to separate two plots of treed land that run up to the canal. Disappearing into the the distance, on the towpath side, are two pedestrians and their dog. The camera turns north to show the high hedge of hawthorns along the canal's towpath, then turns more to show a traditional arc of a brick bridge over the canal, looking west into the sun. More hawthorns and trees.

    PKYo, to random

    We have reached Stoke-on-Trent, where the canal climbed up a heck of a hill by means of a series of deep locks.

    #locks #lock #gate #paddle #sluice #weir #CanalLife #canal #canals #boating #boats #narrowboat

    A view from the stern of a narrowboat, looking forward across the bow at the top gate of a lock, then turning around to look at the bottom gate, from the top down to the roiling water at the bottom, and finally turning again toward the bow.

    PKYo, to random

    :mastodon: you're all crazy unpredictable.

    I post about rain and get endless ⭐s and even a boost or two.

    A post about RAIN??! 🤣

    PKYo, to random

    It's a delightful day. A bit of drizzle never hurt anyone in rain gear.
    ☔☁️

    Earlier, two guys were riding on our ass, and of course you mustn't pull over on principle, because boating life is a slow life. 🤣

    Then within 2 minutes there was a water point. And we did need water, so … they got to pass without us having to concede to their need for speed.

    I'm talking 3½ miles per hour instead of 3 mph.

    #Canal #slow #boating in a #narrowboat by #FazeleyJunction in #England #UK #Coventry #Tamworth

    A sign announces Fazeley Junction. The camera then pans forward over the bow to show an oncoming narrowboat passing under a traditional arched brick bridge over the canal. The canal is bordered by green vegetation, and the drizzley sky is overcast but not too dark.

    PKYo, to random

    Ahhhh, relaxed again.

    We are well beyond the urban bustle, now, and the canal has returned to a green and peaceful state.

    After heading northwest through some heavy industrial terrain, we made a sharp eastward turn and then northeast past the HS2 construction. As we left #Birmingham, each lock had less graffiti, less litter, and less floating debris than the one before it.

    Here's a photo of our current rural location.

    #UK #canal #boating #life in a #narrowboat through #rural #England

    PKYo, to random

    With the help of two Collins Nicholson "Waterways Guide" mapbooks, a £5 dataplan and a search engine, my husband just worked out our boating route for the next two or three weeks.

    Me, I don't care where we go, as long as we boat there together. I was dancing around, all "Yay, we have a route!" and he said when I'm done being a disco monkey, I can put the mapbooks away.
    🐒

    #Lgbt #canal #boating #life on a #narrowboat in the #midlands of #England with a #map

    PKYo, to random

    The canals in England predate its railroad by several decades.

    Roughly I50 years ago, Canada's Atlantic-to-Pacific railroad was built by Chinese navvies (a term that comes from the navigators who built England's canals). It was deadly work.

    Gordon Lightfoot, who died this week, memorialised the navvies in this beautiful story of a song, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, commissioned by CBC for Canada's centennial year.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PXzauTuRG78

    #canal #UK #England #railroad #Canada #GordonLightfoot

    PKYo, to boating

    Canal and River Trust brought 3 steel barges to the marina. Each one arrived on its own lorry/truck. A separate crane lifte them into the basin.

    Here you can see a tug (blue) holding a barge in place in the basin, while a crane (yellow) lifts another barge over to the basin. A second tug has already left with the third barge.

    That's yesterday. Today, three CRT vehicles and crew are parked here, waiting for …?

    #CanalLife #canal #boat #boating #narrowboat #CRT #barge #tug #crane #marina #basin

    PKYo, to boating

    Reached Manchester by early afternoon.

    Tied up at Castlefield. Beautiful afternoon. Went cycling on a Starling Bank share bike. Saw references to bees and beehives everywhere. 🐝

    People are friendly, here.

    PKYo, to random

    OFFICIAL NOTICE:

    We would like you to know that We Are Available, Willing And Able to eat more birdseed.

    Don't delay. Now is good.

    PKYo, to boating

    The locks toward Haigh Hall are deep. Their massive gates weigh more than a tonne each. A number of the gates have chains and pulleys to help boaters open and close them.

    To share the work, I asked another boat to pair up.

    Quite a few of the are covered in a lush, living carpet of (see photo).

    I did see a worker, today, in a white hazardous-materials suit, around each lock – ? 🤔

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