Looks like the Fates are making me wait a while longer to find out if I can write under sail. On the day we were due to leave the marina about three weeks ago, we discovered a major engine/shaft issue and have been occupied ever since sorting it out. Why it chose that moment to announce its presence, we don't know, as there was no sign of trouble in the previous few months. However we're very glad it appeared here inside the marina, and not a few hundred miles offshore in a gale...
Those Fates have been busy in other areas though, and it looks like we won't leave Darwin before the wet season begins. It's a more than a year since we've done any serious sailing, and we're getting a bit desperate, but on the plus side a layover for the wet will mean time to write, and we'll be near some of our kids and grandbabies. We can do a lot of sailing along the NT coast, weather permitting, and that's something to look forward to. But it's so hard watching other cruising yachts come into the marina, and a lot harder watching them leave for places north and west of here.
The new book is slowly evolving. I find I can write comfortably in the saloon, even with husband and marine engineers rumbling around close by. But it's warm - the boat's air conditioner really struggles with Darwin's unusually hot build up. The prediction is for a staggering 37C by the end of this week. Find myself wanting to change the book's setting to somewhere with snow. I'll tell a bit more about the book when it's grown a bit more - if I do that too soon, it'll evaporate!
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