We are BACK

By Richard Bartlett Off Grid Living

It's been nearly 5 years since Hara Shakti was craned into the Great Ouse at Westview Marina in Earith, 5 years of stress, anxiety, anger and bloody hard work (by Nat), but we're almost there. Next week we're travelling back to where it all began to get the hull blacked, replace the prop shaft, add a thrust bearing, and finally she'll be ready for cruising!

The last 3 years in particular has been tough. There was a massive push at the beginning of 2024 to get the boat ready to move back onto, accelerated when we decided to buy a puppy (giving us a hard deadline of May to move back on) and Nat is still feeling the effects of that now, 2 year later.

We've not posted for over a year, and we've not kept up with the refit progress at all. Just based on the blog you'd think we'd fitted a floor and just stopped, but Nat powered on, despite numerous setbacks she;

  • built the stud walls,
  • refit the cladding,
  • built a hearth for the fire,
  • mounted the solar panels,
  • refit the kitchen, and
  • built our daughters bedroom.

Then we moved back into the boat, where I work 99% of the time, there was a new puppy to look after and train and that plus regular family life meant work on the boat eventually ground to a halt.

There's still some stuff to do, but over the last six months the bed was installed in our bedroom so we're off the sofabed, the 12v electrics were properly boxed in, the hot water system has had a proper thermostat fitted and an upgraded immersion, and Lynch have come and reconditioned and refitted the 10kW motors, so we're ready to go.

The new propshaft and thrust bearing will be the last bits of the boat fittted by Thames Solar Electric to be replaced, and a real milestone for us both financially and emotionally.

Neither of us has had the energy to document our journey for the last year or so, and I've shied away from sharing our experiences when they've been negative, but we're nearly there so I want to celebrate and share that, and show both the ups and the downs of living sustainably in a solar powered widebeam.