A quick update   Wednesday, 15/05/2024

I’m sorry that it has been a while since I’ve posted here. Not a lot has been going on, making it a bit difficult to say anything!

There has been gradual progress with boat work. The electronic aspects of the new autopilot are done, and this represents a real upgrade because everything now communicates with everything else. With the chart plotter being new in 2020, just before we left the U.K., it simply couldn’t communicate directly with the old autopilot because technology had moved on considerably. I’m now just waiting on a new mechanical motor for the autopilot, which has to be modified to fit in the existing location because the shape of a new one has changed a little over the years. Everything seems to be complicated!

The new sprayhood is complete and is fitted. It looks good, as the photos below hopefully show. Happily, that is something very visible, so at least there is obvious progress! 

Otherwise, the weather here has been getting colder. Over the past week, the typical daily maximum has been 16 or 17 degrees, albeit mostly sunny. At night it gets cold: the minimum has tended to be about 5 or 6 degrees, although a couple of nights ago it went as low as 3. So rather chilly, but not a great problem – I’ve dug out some warm clothing and bought a cheap (and ridiculous) pair of animal-faced furry slippers. They have been an excellent choice, protecting me from the very cold floor in the boat at night. I have a fan heater which heats up the air pretty well. Sleeping is no problem – I have my old feather duvet, which I only used at the coldest times in the U.K., and it is perfect for nighttime on the boat here.

After two and a half years in the tropics, I’d forgotten what it was like to be cold, so it’s been amusing to feel frozen again. As I’ve said, what really saves the day is that there’s been plenty of sunshine, making it feel relatively warm during the day. It’s fine if it’s a bit cold, as long as it isn’t dreary – it’s grey skies that get tiresome in the winter in the U.K.