And not of the “discretely tip into the canal”* kind either. I returned on board at about five pm yesterday to see a little splash here and there. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s not much way that water can come up—it has to come down.

Sitting down to a cuppa there was definitely a dripping sound. So I followed the darkened wood and discovered not exactly where water was coming in but where it was gathering. But I couldn’t really do anything to stop it. Before long it was pretty dark and with the rain I didn’t really fancy checking the top of the boat. Nice Josh, landlord, suggested that gathering leaves could block what passes for guttering and develop puddles around weak points. Or that the vents to let the humidity out could leak if not shut well (that seemed to be the case over the bath, but a leak into there didn’t bother me too much).

So I left a pan, it had only about 3-4mm of water in it this evening despite a day of pretty much torrential rain.

All good, I suspect. I’ll see if there’s an obvious problem on the roof when it’s next light and dry simultaneously. March, then.

Days at sea: 18

Rations: Jam on toast, again. I like jam on toast.

Stowed: A silver St. Christopher medal given to me on my 18th by my nan and granddad. I wore it for some years, but it’s heavy and I’m not much of a jewellery person, and—truth be told—I wasn’t ever much of a traveller. It’s now hanging from an artistically bent fork—was Uri a previous captain?—providing me with all the superstitious protection that it can.

*I’m not.