Narrowboat Maid of the Mist Blog

We hope you enjoy reading about our travels around the British Inland Waterways

Let me start by first introducing ourselves. We are Jean and Graham Beven and live aboard our 60' narrowboat full time.

We purchased our boat in 2003 as a lined sailaway with a bathroom (we needed a start on the plumbing).

We spent the next 2 years fitting it out ourselves and come July 2005 we decided she was habitable enough to live aboard. And guess what! Like most self fit outs we still have not completely finished to date. This is not due to lack of funding or time. It is purely down to our enjoyment of cruising.

We spent the winter of 2005 in our home marina. We had a car then so it wasn't a problem. I was still working so our time out was restricted to weekends and holidays. This continued until I retired from work at the end of March 2007.

Graham had been retired for a couple of years so he worked on the boat and became house husband. It was a wonderful time. Having the boat was a dream come true. To have one built to our own spec was heaven.

The summer of 2007 was our first long cruise. We went out on 1st April and did not return until 30 September. It was all we expected it to be. Again we spent the winter in the marina. This time we were not so enamoured with marina life, but did not consider at that time to cruise throughout the winter.

2008 we went out again in April and came back in September, but this time we decided lock down the boat and go somewhere warmer for the winter. Our destination was Thailand. It was a fabulous six months.

2009 the same pattern, however this time we chose to go to Sri Lanka for the winter. Unfortunately this did not work out for us and we found ourselves back in the marina within two weeks. By this time we had disposed of the car and had to rely on the children to come to us once a fortnight to take us shopping for food. It was a miserable winter.

We are now at 2010 and have now declared ourselves as continuous cruisers. This is were our blog will start. You can follow us on our journey from here on in. Just click on the buttons on the left to find out where we are and what we have seen. I hope you enjoy our travels.

Author: Jean Beven

Maid of the Mist USA - This is the boat we took the name from. We have been on this boat in 1995 which took us into the mist of Niagara Falls.

Moored opposite Tom's 08.02.10 on the Staffs & Worcester Canal

The Moat House, Acton Trussel - Staffs & Worcester Canal.