Sunrise
I’m not going anywhere today or tomorrow – I’ve realized that and am not stressing it.
I missed a sunrise, sleeping through until 06:30 and barely making it, coffee in hand, to the 07:00 (noon in central Europe) Microsoft Teams video conference call. Apart from having to wake up before 05:00, I haven’t had to use an alarm in years. But that works best when one gets to sleep on time and wakes naturally when the body has been sufficiently refreshed.
Morning
My Home-office work is not of interest to most, but today was my first time playing with some new software from IBM in order to get a preliminary feel for what “challenges” my customer is going to face when migrating and transitioning. In 1871 Helmuth Graf von Moltke wrote
Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus.
which has now evolved to succinctly state “No plan survives contact with the enemy”. This is certainly the case here, as the first contact showed that the previous planning was for naught.
Lunch
I found a functioning dive mask and went to clean the other side of the hull for lunch. The old mask was basically opaque and didn’t show me the true extent of infestation. While scraping I had small crabs the size of my thumbnail fall down or try to climb the hull! I’m a bit nauseous now from being upside-down and swallowing saltwater – all the while avoiding getting cut by barnacles. But not only is the hull encrusted, the propeller and rudder are as well and that needs fixing before I depart.
Afternoon
Knowing I won’t find too much sympathy, I am a bit bushed from my home-office workweek so am going to rest. I’ve cracked open a local Heineken and have the stereo loaded with 700 random songs from my collection. Right now I’ve got some Wagner (Ring der Nibelungen) playing, but that doesn’t fit here so I’ll press fast-forward.
While resting from doing nothing I noticed a strange looking event, a boat seemingly sailing backwards around Pigeon Island. After realizing that this wasn’t an optical illusion I thought it might be going backwards while dousing the sails. But then, once the boat got closer under engine, I saw it actually was motoring backwards. Once they got close, I got into the dinghy and motored there to ask if they might need assistance. It turns out they didn’t speak English, just French, but I understood that their brand new transmission only worked in reverse. I hovered around in case something went wrong while they anchored. Subsequently, when they asked me about local Yanmar technicians I stifled a laugh and in my halting French told them that, (A) they wouldn’t get anyone until Tuesday, and (B) they wouldn’t get anyone actually good. They said they’d head to Martinique to get the work done. That was a smart decision on their part.
Evening
I have some thawed Chorizo sausages and a thawed baguette waiting to meet Mr. BBQ tonight.
