Friday 20^th April

My brain is aching somewhat from all of the unaccustomed activity…

I am very much unused to sitting at a desk having to concentrate for long periods of time.  But…that is why they call it work, and not play….

We are still on 2XS.  Pete has vacuumed the floor so it is all very spick and span.  There was a thick carpet of corn chip crumbs stretching from one end of the boat to the other after our welcome home on Sunday.  Well what we can see of the carpet is spick and span…it is actually covered with a thick entwining of power cords, leading from one electrical appliance to another, like a nest of orange and white serpents.  This morning I caught my foot in one of the loops and nearly caused myself a serious injury on the way downstairs – how ignominious, to survive all of those months at sea and then break an ankle when neatly tied up in a Hobart marina!!

Pete has been busily doing this and that (weaving power cords around the floor, apart from anything else…) and has included Greg, the Canadian sailor from Alcidae II in his activities.  Greg is mightily impressed with Hobart – it is SO pretty, SO clean, SO shiny.  But…he can’t understand anybody, and doesn’t really believe we are speaking English.  Pete, with his broad accent, Greg can understand, because Pete speaks loudly and clearly.  I tried to tell him, gently, that everyone has an accent, himself included.  But this is a strange concept, isn’t it?  We all think our very own accent is the pure one, the correct one, and that everyone else is speaking comically, or wrongly. 

Greg also is horrified by how expensive everything is.  The truth is that he hasn’t been home for over six years and doesn’t know how prices have increased all over the world, Canada included.  This morning he asked Pete to take him to the yacht club in Sandy Bay, where there is a lone sailor from England.  I think he wanted to compare war wounds with this woman!