Did We Sell Our House For A Narrowboat Life That Is Disappearing?
Living on a narrowboat in the UK is getting harder. For the second summer running the canals do not have enough water in them, locks are closing across the network, and the Oxford Canal is shut until October. We came back to Serenissima planning seven weeks of cruising and managed two and a half. This is an honest account of what two years of drought is doing to the UK canal system, and whether this way of living still works. Three years ago we sold our house and moved aboard, on the basis that we would spend summers on the canals and the rest of the year travelling abroad. Two summers in a row, the summer half has gone. We were going to take the boat up the Shropshire Union to Chester and cruise slowly back. We did not go. With stoppages going up across the network and a ferry booked, we could not risk getting up there and not being able to get back. So we stayed on our own stretch and went up and down it to fill the water tank and empty the toilet, and that was the summer. Our home canal, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire, is four to five inches below its normal level, in the UK's fifth heatwave of the year with temperatures at 35 degrees. We are not the worst affected. When water gets short the first thing that happens is that locks shut, because every boat through a lock sends a lock's worth of water downhill and out of the system. We have also put in something we filmed in our first summer and never published. Serenissima aground between two locks on the Shroppie with the propeller hitting the bottom. The fix is to run up to the lock above and send water down, and it is surprising how much difference one lock makes. But you are not magically getting water from nowhere. You are stealing it from another pound, and when the whole system is short of water that stops being something you can do. The Oxford Canal, which we would like to cruise, is closed until October. The winter stoppages start in November. That gives you a month to use it properly, and the same thing is happening all over the country. Alongside that there is a day cruising with no locks to work, an ice cream stop in Brewood, a niçoise salad instead of the lasagna we had planned because the boat was too hot to put the oven on, and a partial solar eclipse watched from the roof through a colander and a piece of cardboard out of the bin, because there was not a pair of eclipse glasses left in the country. We do not have an answer. Three years in, we are planning our lives around whether there is enough water in a canal, and there are no guarantees anymore. Want the bits that didn't make the main film? Click the 'Join' button below to become a Nomads Club member and watch the exclusive B-Side, where we take the canopy Adam destroyed on the Macclesfield Canal to be repaired, and find out what it costs against a replacement. Original Soundtrack by Adam. All music in our films is original, composed and produced by Adam (PhD in audio-visual composition). Who are The Floating Nomads? We are Rick and Adam, The Floating Nomads. We live a life of constant slow travel by train, ferry and water. When not on our UK narrowboat, Serenissima, we live abroad for months at a time. Whether spending 200+ days in Malta (and Venice) or travelling from Buxton to Brazil without flying (as seen on CNN). Support the Journey New Films: Every Friday evening (UK time). Channel Members: Early access every Thursday, starting at just £2.99/month. Members also unlock exclusive B-Side videos. Click 'Join' under any video to help support our work. #Narrowboat #UKCanals #CanalBoat #NarrowboatLife #LivingAboard #ShropshireUnion #CanalAndRiverTrust #UKDrought #SlowTravel #FloatingNomads #CanalBoatLife #Brewood #StaffordshireAndWorcestershireCanal #InlandWaterways #NarrowboatUK