{"id":857,"date":"2017-10-26T12:10:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T11:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/?p=857"},"modified":"2021-03-03T12:51:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T11:51:53","slug":"the-non-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/?p=857","title":{"rendered":"The Non-Start"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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phew.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

We had another run-in with the RNLI who have become our personal rescue service these days.\u00a0 They should re-brand with the slogan ‘Towing Seahorse Most Weeks’.\u00a0 We could make them a film and everything to promote it.\u00a0 Our short trip to Eel Pie Island was over before it even started as the engine failed as soon as we had untied all the ropes.\u00a0 We were then left dithering sideways mid-river while the tide pushed us towards towards Kew Bridge.<\/p>\n

I was watching Pat as it happened and he said:\u00a0 ‘Why aren’t you moving faster?’ (To the accelerator stick with the bobble on top that I am a bit afraid of’).\u00a0 And then he said ‘Fuck’ as the engine sort of died.\u00a0 Then he stuck his head out of the window of the wheelhouse at Louis who was helping us with the journey and said ‘Fuck’ at him, as though it was a command.\u00a0 Then he ordered me downstairs with the kids, to be honest I had already decided that would be the best place for us.\u00a0 Sammy had no idea what was going on and was happily chewing on his bottle.\u00a0 Nina said ‘Oh.\u00a0 But I want to go to Eel Pie Island’. And then ‘I’m hungry’.\u00a0 And finally ‘ I’m going to put my rollerskates on’.\u00a0 Perfect footwear for the situation.<\/p>\n

I do believe I kept my cool as the boat drifted.\u00a0 I ran up and down the stairs a few times, looked about, told Nina to keep Sammy still and got my phone from the bedroom.\u00a0 I took a picture and put it on Instagram and then I asked Pat if I should call someone meaningful.\u00a0 Pat meanwhile had put the anchor down and called the coastguard saying PAM PAM Seahorse a few times.\u00a0 (I love PAM PAM!\u00a0 How exciting- I might start all my conversations with PAM PAM, makes everything sound more energetic. PAM PAM Simone here.)<\/p>\n

Even though we had put the anchor down the boat was still drifting and that was alarming.\u00a0 Happily, we were drifting through the central arch of the bridge which is better than into it.<\/p>\n

SO to cut a not very exciting rest of story short, the RNLI appeared, saved the day and towed us back 10 metres to our mooring.\u00a0 We nearly squashed a few rowers.\u00a0 FUN TIMES.\u00a0 So we were back where we first began a few hours later and a bit paler.\u00a0 Pat was particularly pale and I felt a bit sad for him as he had been very excited about the little trip and the independence of it all.\u00a0 Just ‘popping’ to eel pie island to have the boat re-painted.\u00a0 It takes a lot to ruffle the fur on that old sea dog. Well, he’s more a barge dog really.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Disappointing but not too disastrous.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had another run-in with the RNLI who have become our personal rescue service these days.\u00a0 They should re-brand with the slogan ‘Towing Seahorse Most Weeks’.\u00a0 We could make them a film and everything to promote it.\u00a0 Our short trip to Eel Pie Island was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-voyages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}