Spliced Again

Jan and I got spliced almost 41 years ago.  Haven’t regretted it and wake up most mornings thinking how lucky she was to be the chosen one!   Recently she accepted an offer from another man to go off with him.  He had something that I no longer have….. libido….. a car!  However it can’t have been that great because Bill brought her back!   Jan obviously knows when she’s onto a good thing!
Anyway I digress!  Today was about getting spliced for the second time in my life.  Years ago I was taught how to whip rope, but until today I’ve never spliced it.  Like 123,832 people before me I watched the instructions on YouTube.   The actual technique is quite simple so I only had to pull it apart twice before it was done correctly (LOL).

Half done
The rope 14mm 3 strand cordage came as a 20 metre length and we wanted two 10 metres mooring lines with a loop at one end and the other end back spliced.  My “village idiot” technique was to wrap a piece of different coloured insulation tape around each of the three strands so I could tell them apart.  This was 95% successful as I only went wrong twice.  I even melted the ends with a naked flame to prevent them fraying before reading it was a bad move.  Apparently the hard melted ends have the potential to tear open the palm of your hand if the cordage was to race through it. Consequentially I cut the melted ends off!
We now have two relatively heavy mooring lines to replace the 12mm cordage previously purchased on eBay.  The latter will now be used as centrelines.
We had a chance encounter this morning (pun intended) after reading on the blog of nb Chance that James and Doug had passed us yesterday and were now moored at Woolhampton. 

The morning was cool and crisp so I donned my jacket, hand knitted beanie and mittens (made by Jan) and briskly walked the towpath to Woolhampton where I found Chance moored on the visitor moorings above the lock.  Doug was up and about so I took the opportunity to snap a photo whilst James was finishing in the shower.

We spent an hour catching up with each others news and learned of their winter plans before heading back to Waiouru.  Hopefully we will see more of them in the coming months.
The afternoon was spent preparing and varnishing the cratch king plank and applying a coat of ‘Impreg’ to the blackwater tank step face.  Tomorrow the king plank will get a second coat of varnish and we will also look at fitting the door stops to the outside of the side hatch doors.  The stops will prevent the hatch doors from banging against the new paintwork on the sides of the cabin.