Imagine my surprise to look out the wheelhouse window and see the sky had turned into one massive red cloud and watch the rain coming down as mud. Was it the apocalypse?
Every boat in the marina was covered in it. As if washing all the grime that had accumulated on our barges over the winter wasn’t going to be a big enough job…
Jeannie did some sleuthing on the internet. Mud rain is a well-known phenomena – just not to us. It happens when dust, usually from the Sahara Desert is blown high into the atmosphere. It can travel thousands of miles. The dust particles mix with water droplets in the clouds (in this case over Aleau and other boats in the marina) and comes down as mud. Barging has been a learning experience. Mud rain was something we hadn’t anticipated.
Jeannie and I spent most of the day scrubbing away the mud. Here, she has got most of it off the cabin roof. We used brushes with poles and got on our hands and knees with rags. Most of what is white is, once again, white. But there’s still a lot of white we couldn’t reach.
We’re not allowed to use the taps on the pontoon to wash the boat. They’re only to be used to fill the drinking-water tank. A fellow bargee loaned us a submersible pump. We lowered it barely into the marina water, tied it to a cleat on the pontoon, and plugged it into the electrical outlet on the borne. Voilà, attached to a long hose, we had water from the Saône. Jeannie and I took turns – one of us scrubbing while the other washed away the residue.
We didn’t touch any of the decking or anything painted blue. We were both quickly soaking wet – and it’s February. The rest will have to wait for warmer weather. Let’s hope it doesn’t stain. And let’s hope that’s the last mud rain we’ll ever experience.