Dexter's Shed

thanks for all the replies

someone posted up an old tv doc video, and.... as a non NB owner, thoroughly enjoyed watching that, now don't laugh as It made me think of a question to ask, after seeing the bit on the sea otter..... what would be the difference or complexity of having your steel NB re-covered in ali ? I suppose the initial outlay would be high, but if you own a boat for a long time, how would that compare to having to blacken it every x amount of years or even replating

as a non NB owner, thoroughly enjoyed watching that, now don't laugh as It made me think of a question to ask, after seeing the bit on the sea otter..... what would be the difference or complexity of having your steel NB recovered in ali ? I suppose the initial outlay would be high, but if you own a boat for a long time, how would that compare to having to blacken it every x amount of years or even replating

I know naff all about boats, but this has been an interesting read, as for the worry around the Eberspacher , could you not simply take a new charged battery along, hook it up and then try it out, along with the engine ignition ? surely that would seal the deal one way or the other and may save ££££'s

I don't know if boats water system is similar to caravans, but on my van I had this problem, I simply opened up each closed tap one at a time, starting with closest to the pump, and sucked on each tap till water came out, seemed like an air lock in the system, once done they all worked fine

I own a woodland with ash growing, come take your pick,lol

before I had caravans in my woodland I had a big 5ft canvas bell tent, seems a lot of bell tent owners use paraffin heaters too, with ventilation of course, I picked up this french heater via evil bay and having used it in both tent and caravan, have to say it worked great, heated up quickly, and even allowed us to boil a kettle on top, still have it so it'll come with me as and when I come live on the water

how do you get the car onboard

good luck on your quest to find a liveaboard, being in a similar position, broken marriage, private flat renting, I'm toying with the idea of buying now rather than later, although I would need to find a permanent marina to carry on working, I'll keep a check here and see how you get on

might be deemed a little over kill, but you could always fit one of these,

so is that 4k just your mooring fees ? then weekly living on top ? sounds good so far

hi everyone, I last posted here back in nov 2015, when I was sure my marriage was going up the river so to speak, well it did,lol, yes I can laugh about it, I'm happy and relaxed, something I wasn't for a long time, anyhow, onto my questions I'm currently renting a flat from my sister (cheap rent) but cannot stay here forever (romford) as she'll want to make money from rent again, and I'm looking into the future, I'm 52yrs young now, but what happens when I hit retirement age? cannot see the government shelling out to keep me in a private property the only thing of value I have is a woodland in kent, bought 4yrs ago at 49k, probably worth around 59k now, maybe a little more, so I'm back to thinking, not enough to buy myself a dwelling, but a canal boat is doable but rather than wait another 20yrs, why not now ? so, if I could find a marina, within easy travelling distance of M25/london to allow me to carry on working (I'm a night working pest controller for london underground) do they have parking areas for cars/vans (I have one of each) do you pay for parking spaces ? what would be a ball park figure for monthly payments to live in a marina ? I'm probably laying out around £1000 a month to live in a flat do they allow pets (small jrt) do you pay council tax ? any info gratefully accepted

yes, I used wire bird bread feeders attached to center of netting to hold the bait, most meats will do, but I had best results with fresh rabbit,

I cannot believe that the EA would allow red's to live alongside whites without doing something about it, the reds carry a fungus that kills our native crays, so the native crays would not be in the same stretch of water for very long. but we could carry on arguing that out forever, and to be honest, I'm not into "I know more than you" type convo's I simply put up a post concerning trapping and eating american red's, let's leave it there

when our native crays are found in stretches of water, they are in fact removed and placed in secret areas as such, the reds carry a disease which kills off ours, I thought you were commenting on reds when you said they needed reporting

no, as it's not fishing, the definition of fishing is a rod and a line, drop nets are simply that, drop a flat net in, wait a few minutes and lift out (it's baited with meat) so no fishing license needed y school kids. if our native signals have been reported in the same area, a license would never be issued, once in possession of the tags, you don't need to inform the EA of anything

not trying to teach any grandmothers to suck eggs but does anyone here catch crayfish? as a pest controller I was Introduced to these a number of years ago by a shooting buddy, he took me and the wife and kids to a stretch of river alongside a canal, and we had a great day catching rather a lot of crayfish, I was hooked so to speak, so started thinking BIGGER.... we had been using small crab drop nets, after looking at what I had in the shed, I used 27" bicycle wheels with the spokes removed, to make eight large drop nets, I contacted the environmental agency and got tags for my drop nets and a 4yr cover on a couple of miles of water, all free of charge, I will need to renew my tags now as they taste great, and are classed as the poor man's lobster so there we were, bringing home crayfish in the hundreds, your not allowed to put back once caught as they are non native to the UK, a few people I know sell them to the local chinese take away shops, cooking them on the cooker was a bit time consuming, so I sourced a crayfish boiling pot from america and had it shipped over, coupled up with a propane gas ring it made light work of cooking if removing them from flowing waters, they can be boiled and eaten pretty much straight away, if removing them from standing waters, ponds etc, it's best to purge them for a day or two, and use salt to cleanse the mud from them

do you know anyone with an arc welder you could borrow? I often thought it would be handy to weld, but always thought it was out of my league, picked up a £40 arc welder from aldis last year and taught myself via youtube, not bad considering I'm no spring chicken, by all accounts it's called gorilla welding

should this be under a separate post title on....... dogging

I got two from maplins, think they are made by SWAN, cost around £60 each, but with discount vouchers bout £100 for the pair, footage is from my woodland, you can buy a thin cycle lock to pass through the camera, meaning the only way for someone to pinch is by breaking it? the downside to point them towards each other, as I found out, is the infra red night light cause whatever camera comes on second, to be flooded with light, and therefore no picture/video can be seen,

shame but my woods are nowhere near any canals securely locked gates stops people driving in to pinch wood, but no way of stopping the walkers (unless they are zombies of course) yes, it's locked away in a secure cabinet when not in use

I think london does that to you, lived there most of my life, and although now live in essex,I bought a woodland In Kent 3yrs ago,I'm always still paranoid about leaving locks undone or items out even when staying there, even though I have a shotgun at my side, yet as a kid growing up, our front doors were left on the latch all day no worries so is it london living? or just that times have changed, if and when I get a NB, it'll be fort knox for me

hi all, a quick bit about me, I'm currently a full time pest controller and have owned my own woodland for around 3yrs now, and yes it get's lonely on ones own over there, at first everyone wanted days over there and there were always other plot holders working, nowadays it seems to have gone a bit quite, and through watching canal journeys on the TV, my thoughts have become, should I sell the woodland and buy a canal boat? I wouldn't want to pay much over 20k for a boat, and of course there's all the other yearly payments to think about, at the moment the woodland serves as a place to stay occasionally, collect logs for the home wood burner, do a little shooting, and of course, escape the rat race I thought long and hard, and could give up the shooting without a second thought, is it all just a dream, are there lots of pitfalls I'm missing, I suppose I would need to find a permanent mooring to start with, close to essex, so my weekends could be spent there, plus longer on holidays, eventually I could just disappear,lol