Jackie Gay

Here she is

And one with Miami in the background.
This is sailing in January!

The container delivering our new boat was stuck in customs for a week, then a further two days delay due to (ahem) bureaucratic errors (no swearing on this page, that’s only allowed when you’re upside down in a boat blindly groping at a split ring…). But eventually we retrieved her and have built and launched her, superhuman efforts by all the team!

The boat has been named ‘Ryushin’, a Buddhist name meaning ‘Dragon Heart’, which we hope will be a good omen for China (it also makes a great logo!)

Dusk was falling by the time we finished installing kit and rigging her, here is Matt paddling her across the dock.

and us toasting her in the dark!

By this time we were hot, sweaty and far too dirty for our new boat, but very excited and happy to have her on the water at last. Today we will take her out sailing, anticipating a lot of tweaking and fiddling still to get her right but it’s SO good to have a boat again.

In case you were wondering about the weather over here, take a look at this natural swimming pool we went to at the weekend. Bliss… although I did dream that it was full of crocs! (it’s not)

Well, here we are in sunny Miami (74 degrees as I write, although it was ‘only’ 54 when we got here, the coldest day they’d had in 7 years, apparently…) but our boat containers are stuck in customs.

Frustrating but we’ve done everything we can to speed up procedures and now have to be patient and speak nicely to the harrassed girl at the shipping agents. Crossed fingers for tomorrow. I’ve read lots of Hemingway (and contemplated a visit to his house in Key West, sadly we have to stay reasonably close to the container drop off point in Coconut Grove just in case. The six toed cats, descendents of one of ‘Papa’s’ can been see on ‘cat-cam’ though). I’ve also done my outstanding marking, knitted and am even contemplating looking at the manuscript of my sadly-neglected novel today. But the sun is shining! Us vitamin-D deprived Brits need to get outside…

Yesterday we went to the Everglades and went on an airboat ride.

Here is Allan bracing himself for a fast 360 degree turn. I did have an image of him sliding out into the croc-swamp…

I’m not terribly keen on crocs (have enough bits missing already, thanks), but the ride was great fun and I liked the swampy, tropical landscape. Bought some giant mangoes on the way home from a stall called ‘Robert is Here’, which had its own musician playing Country as people bought avocadoes the size of footballs and collards (greens) half the size of my kitchen.

Hopefully going for a swim today but not here!
And say a few prayers to the God of Amenable Customs Agents.

Love to all at home
Jx