Friday night. The ‘‘nowhere to go’ fleet of boats in the anchorage tuned in for the  Dave and Helen pub-less quiz extravaganza. Number two in a series of who knows how many episodes.  There were 9 participating boats. Prizes were available. Pencils were at the ready. Glasses of wine and cans of beer adding brain food to the expectant participants.

It took us probably a good 6 or 7 hours to end up with something we were happy with. Is it too easy? Is it too hard? Is it multi national enough? Is there enough variety? We road-tested the bones of the quiz on a couple of folk via the internet in advance. One came back with a two word response to how hard it was. Nice bit of direct flavoursome feedback there. 😀 The other reckoned he got about 70% which meant we decided we were good to go.

We had a couple of rounds that related to our situation here. One round’s questions were all about countries we can’t sail to from here. Lockdown persists. Did you know that over 53,000 New Zealander’s stated their religion to be Jedi in their 2001 census?

We devised a couple of rounds where the answers were all connected. So if you got the connection, but didn’t know all the answers immediately, the connection may provide some help or least aid a guess. Our connection was names of boats in the anchorage. Boats call each other daily over the radio using names so the intel was out there. Or so we thought.

There’s a boat here called Gecko. The question being, what sub order of lizard includes the varieties crested, common leopard, and new caladonia giant. The boat’s owner didn’t get that one. They came in for a bit of stick in the scoring section.

And just to keep the quiz fanatics in line, one of the questions was “What colour is Helen’s toothbrush?’

We haven’t moved Grace for about 15 days. We’ve decided to see if / when / how the global situation develops in the next 2 to 3 weeks. In our time here, I haven’t worn shoes. I have been to the beach twice. Once to get rid of our rubbish and once to collect groceries from Henri. Steps on land maybe 500 in total. So it’s paddle boarding and bits of swimming and hull cleaning for exercise. Plus a friend in the UK sent me a programme of exercises that we just about have space for in the boat.

The sewing machine has been out. The generator has been serviced. We suffer from FSS (flat surface syndrome) on the boat. A friend introduced us to this. When you’re at anchor, any flat surface gets quickly covered in stuff. We are well into our second week of this and it shows no sign of abating.

So chums. Stay well. Be kind. We have some days when our mood is up and buoyant, others when the situation feels stifling and energy sapping. Our next big move. Who knows. We’ve spent hours debating  it without any obvious solution. Maybe inspiration and clarity will arrive one day.

I’ve hardly taken any pics lately. Must try harder.