Straightaways, roundabouts.

Balance in all things: we're sitting on the deck of a rented villa with dirty bathrooms and dusty everything, but the view is rather nice, and the temperature is not worth discussing with a Canadian audience. There are a couple of small lizards and one of them is blowing up the orangey blob under his chin and bobbing up and down. I think the other lizard is his date. A small black wren-like bird with a red chest swoops by, really close, to pick up crumbs from our crackers and cheese, and in about a half-an-hour, three bats will emerge from the decking over our heads and swoop off into the dusky dusk.

Also, pelicans, an egret, and rum drinks.

After a week, we're almost ready to launch. Should have launched today, but several rainy days earlier in the week delayed the bottom-painting. We found the boat in good shape. No ants, which is joyful news, and no major leaks that we can see. The dinghy is in the water, but after all my best patching efforts, there's still one leak on the starboard pontoon that defies incredible lashings of glue and monster patches. Maybe it needs stitches. Maybe the whole image of someone scraping old glue off of an inflated boat with a very sharp knife is just wrong. Maybe we'll cut it up and use it for chafing gear. Turn it into fashionable gray sandals. Waterproof bikinis. Weight-loss shorts.

Season five begins, and I find that lots of things have changed. Mostly for us: we have a house ashore now, and that makes this other part of our year seem more stable. Such riches, two homes. And I still get typically cranked up about dirty showers and no toilet paper in a rental villa, and it took me a week to get reaclimatized to the fabulous disinterest of the cashiers at the grocery store. Too many months of cheery faces saying "did you find everything you were looking for?" totally wrecks you for re-entry into the Caribbean. But in Canada, don't we get sick of have-a-nice-day, and man, those greeters at Walmart or the Gap? Don't you just try to duck out of their way? Not that I even got into a Gap this year. You can get all the Gap you need at Frenchy's, and nobody lurks around the entrance waiting to cheer up your sorry-second-hand-butt. I love that.


Egret, scratching his neck, while pelican swoops by, and wren is grabbing crackers. Bat wing beginning to poke out from under decking. Bugs are out, going inside to charge tiny computer battery that lasts for hours and hours! First charge in a week!

See below for pictures. Michelle and Charlie on Mi Amante are here and launched a couple of days ago, and are now waiting on engine repairs. One step forward, one step back.