I went down to check on her at the weekend, planning to give her a good clean, but I got sidetracked by investigating the water tank under the cabin floor. The water was smelly and undrinkable last season and I've been meaning to sort it out for a while.
The floor was quite easy to remove, with just a couple of screws, but getting the tank out through a small gap in the beams was tricky - it's not that flexible any more. I scraped a chunk of skin off my hand in the process. Blood and swearing. Last time I was on the boat I managed to crush part of a fingernail; so that's two scars from the season even before getting out on the water.. Eventually I was rewarded with a lovely beige, bilge-oil-smeared sausage of aged water tank sitting on the pontoon. Funny how that was so satisfying.
After many sloshings around with hot water from the bath tap at home, the addition of some baking powder and an overnight application of Puriclean, the water looks almost drinkable. The stuff that came out at first was frankly disturbing. I'm going to change the pipes, fit a decent foot pump and add an in-line charcoal filter (£20 or so), which will hopefully result in the untold luxury of drinking water straight from the tap this year.
There's no shortage of little and not-so-little improvements to fit in soon, but the priority is to get Limbo out sailing again before too long. She still needs that bath though.
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