A very brief post script. We pulled up onto the dock in Great Bridge this evening after day three of motoring up the ICW. I’d been writing a proposal for work for several hours while Dave has been Cap’n, steering the boat.

We were both ready to stretch out legs so did a loop round the woods before a later dinner on the boat. On our way out, a jogger coming the other way stopped. “Nice hat” he said. Completely unprompted.

I’m not a hat person. I believe they are primarily things to be worn of necessity in the hills and mountains to deter chilliness. So unsurprisingly, my personal hat collection is limited. One baseball cap from a client event about 7 years which serves to keep the sun off and is really a bit on the skanky side of pleasantness now. A woolly beany for warmth and a back up warm waterproof hat with deputy dawg ears should I loose the aforementioned woolly garment.

My reasons for not being a hat person are two fold. Number one, when I wear one I look like an idiot. Number two, I feel ‘hemmed in’ wearing one. I will generally resist the necessity to wear one until basic reasoning takes over. What I really mean here is, I’m too hot or I’m cold.

My friend Biddy is a hat person. She looks great in a hat. And I think she’d appreciate the new addition to my collection. Where’s this all leading……well I have a new hat!

We’ve been in warm places of late. The sensible gene kicked in and I decided hat protection was the way to go. Budget allocated $12. Requirements…big, straw, stiff not floppy, lightweight plus a string to stop it blowing away. I can report all requirements were met other than I blew the budget. I frivolously spent $12.95. We were exchanging texts with some friends and I sent a picture of my new hat as part of the conversation, well he said, you can always use it to strain pasta!

So with my new linguini hat in position, we are heading up the Intra coastal waterway from Morehead City, North Carolina towards Norfolk Virginia. We spent 4 days at sea getting from the Bahamas to Morehead. It turned into a trip of contrasts. Some great fast sailing, periods of no wind where we turned the engine on and some relatively unpleasant beating into the wind with confused seas and occasional waves in cockpit. That bit wasn’t much fun as I wished to be miraculously teleported to somewhere….anywhere.

We are on a bit of a deadline to get up to the Chesapeake to get the boat hauled out for summer. We will back in the UK from mid July to mid September, a trip that’s been planned for several months, although we haven’t actually booked flights yet as we wanted to be 100% sure of being close to the airport. Too much previous history here!

A last snippet. Three years ago today we moved onto the boat. She sits slightly lower in the water as she now has to transport an extra hat.

We’re two nights in to our 1400 mile passage from Jamaica to the USA, passing east of Cuba then up through the Bahamas chain. Guantanamo Bay is prominent on the charts. The relationship between the US and Cuba has not always been straightforward so I’m curious to know how the US have / had a detention centre there? No internet at sea so I can’t look that up and find out the history. That thought will disappear into the ether. Bye.

We bought a couple of paperback books each in anticipation of reading lots on passage. I’ve read both of mine plus one of Dave’s too. Hmm. It’s a bit like buying a large bar of chocolate and thinking, ooh, that’ll last a long time then gorging on it mercilessly.

I do read fiction although my preference is more for something based on real life. Travel stories, personal accounts, biographies, that kind of stuff. Forget sci-fi or fantasy. Can’t get into that bizarre malarkey and I have an 8 year old ally.

We met an American family a few weeks ago who self school on the boat. Their daughter was eight and son eleven I think. Advice from their schools was as long as the kids are up to date on their maths and english for their academic year, they’d be fine. They set off with a stack of school books and resources, occasionally FaceTiming into their class to catch up with school friends, be part of lessons and share what they’ve been up to on their year long sailing trip.

The children were fun to be around, although they always went back to their own boat at the end of the day 😀. Mum was really struggling to get her daughter to read. This was how this 8 year old evaluated fiction. “I’m not reading it. It’s all made up therefore it’s all lies.” Difficult for mum to argue that one.

Quick boaty update. We have anchored off a Bahamian island to rest up after 4 days at sea. My the water is so amazingly clear here. All good. All safe. Some fine sailing. My only grumble is some blinking fish took my lure. Probably a barracuda. So tinned tuna for tea not mahi. Grumble.