A Floating Home

by Cyril Ionides; J. B. Atkins

But at very high tides the ground underneath the overturned boat was flooded, so that gear stored there could not be kept dry. The boat was then raised bodily a foot or so from the ground by planking. After a few weeks, to make more storage room still, the old man raised the sides of his boat some three feet more and put a roof over her.

This structure escaped objection from the landowner for a year, and so the following summer the roof was removed, the sides were raised another two feet, and the roof was put on again.

This also escaped criticism. Accordingly, the following year an annexe was built on at the bows, and eventually a cement floor was laid. Now there is a water-butt at the junction of the annexe and the main building.

We await further developments.

We made the mistake once—if, indeed, it was not an offence—of offering our neighbour some work. He explained that he had too much to do already, and referred to a particular job which he did not begin till six months later. ‘No sooner do I git one job done than I sees another starin’ me in the face,’ he often says.

Last summer he painted the inside of his yacht, and for ten days he slept in his boat-hut on shore. Sundown every evening was his time for ‘bunkin’ up,’ as he called it, and we used to make a point of asking him what time he would be up in the morning. To this he would answer: ‘Abaout five or six, I reckon. Last summer I used to get up at faour sometimes. Goo to bed with the ould hens and git up along of ’em—that’s the way.’

Then we would watch him retire. There is no door on hinges to his hut, but a flap which fits in the opening. He had to disappear stern first, fit the flap in the bottom of the opening, and pull the top into position with a string. He withdrew from our gaze each evening in the following order: legs, body clad in a blue jersey, white beard, red face, and straw hat.

The next morning we would always be up first, and while we were busy on deck we kept an eye open for the first trembling of the flap. Then out would come the hat, the red face, the white beard, blue body, and legs, and another day had begun for our neighbour. We thought he would have made excuses for not getting up earlier, but we soon discovered that on most days he had no idea what the time was.

At the Happy Haven our water is brought to us by cart in a canvas water-carrier, which holds two hundred gallons. One day we had a panic about one of the tanks. The water-cart had brought four loads, and still the tanks were not full. We heard a sound of running water, which we took to be the water siphoning from one tank to the other. When I returned from London the next evening, the sound of running water continued, but there was something worse—an audible splashing. And the water in the port tank had fallen. Friends were dining with us that night, but luckily they did not expect conventional amusements; they preferred tackling leaking water-tanks to bridge.