IN THE interest of balance in the area of enforcement on the southern Grand Union, I would like to share my recent experience of being boat-bound through illness over more than two weeks in the Milton Keynes area, writes John Howard.
Things started to go wrong, health-wise, after we had been moored for 10 days at Grafton Regis— one of our favourite mooring locations.
Continued to escalate
Seemingly a typical run of the mill stomach bug initially, or so we thought at the time. However this problem continued to escalate rather than clear over the following days, despite calls to 111 (and even a 999 call one night when my wife wasn't sure I was going to make it through the night) and several trips to our local GP for tests.
As we realised that we were about to hit our 14 day limit, a quick email to local Enforcement Officer, Glyn Bumford, to explain our predicament and we were quickly reassured to stay safe and stay put, but to maintain communication regarding our progress.
Toilet facilities
This is where the debate could tangent off vis a vis toilet holding tanks versus cassette toilets. There is an argument here that for live-aboards in times of gastric emergency the one thing one needs is ‘capacity', as the stress of overflowing tanks is not something one wants to think too much about when so incapacitated in this way. However, the case for cassettes may be similarly argued if you have the support of a third party who might drive them to the nearest Elsan to maintain a degree of spare capacity.
Anyhow, we have a holding tank that under normal circumstances provides for a comfortable 14 day cycle—which also acts as a useful motivation to keep to the 14 day movement rules. Of course with the increased reliance on this facility during this period, there came a point where one had to ‘gird one's loins' and after a Herculean effort I managed to move the boat the short 45 minute journey to Stoke Bruerne in order to refresh the black water and fresh water tanks, before shuffling onto the 48 hour visitor moorings.
More reassurance
Once again after updating the enforcement team of our location and current health status (anticipating each day that the following day would be seeing an improvement or even a return to good health), we received yet more reassurance that we should concentrate on getting better and not to stress about overstaying.
I have to say that at times like these I take a tremendous amount of comfort from the fact that we have a previously unblemished mooring record, which I'm sure goes some way to eliciting a more sympathetic response from the local enforcement team. Our local team were prepared to provide a temporary Authorised Overstay, which allowed us to concentrate on sorting the health issues out without stressing about how the long the boat was being moored at a particular location. This sympathetic and understanding approach was never more welcome than when I was then rushed into hospital as the problem became more critical.
Back on track
Today, after four days in hospital, I am pleased and relieved to be being discharged from the hospital, and have already made arrangements with some friends to support us tomorrow in moving the boat up the Bruerne Flight which will put our ‘Bona Fide Navigation' back on track.
I share this personal experience with you to show that, in my experience, if you play the game with a straight bat CaRT will play fair back.