New Bern, North Carolina, USA, has been a pleasure, at least so far. Sharing facilities has speeded up the resident sailmaker's production of our new genoa, now crispy white with 'toast' UV strip. (One day all the canvas will be the same colour, maybe.) Neighbours share stories, offer lifts and advice. It's all rather nice. Juffa is stripped back - sails, bimini and stack pack stowed below with anything that might blow away from dan buoy to electronic equipment while the wind generator is de-bladed. All essential preparations for making a trip back to the UK while the Atlantic hurricane season is underway.

Back in sunny Sussex we acclimatise to the slightly less tropical temperatures spending time with baby Neave (who's now a very determined toddler) while developing additional strategies to distract her when she's abandoned to our company by her parents and prefers to hug the door they departed from, rather than us... She does however, like the range of nibbles at the West Dean Chilli Festival rather more than last year. Cornwall is visited once again although this time we manage to miss the blackberry picking, benefiting only from the post production blackberry jelly which is rather nice. The scenic coast at St Ives looks totally British. No where else have we seen families bravely huddled behind wind breaks eating sandy sandwiches in fleeces before they strip off to experience the waves, revealing newly developed pinkness.

British beaches do seem to have their own unique feel. Beach huts, crazy golf courses and for Sussex, the pebbles. The birthday sister's day out embraces them all with a little healthy competition for first place in crazy golf, although rules may be disputed at times. The conker games however continued through the twilight.

Hurricane awareness has been raised throughout our visit but more so as Irma makes an appearance. The regular visits to NOAA and the National Hurricane Centre websites become more systematic, even involving night time updates. Irma develops into a major hurricane and devastates so much of the Caribbean we've recently visited. TV coverage shows the horrific impact on people's lives. Fortunately for us Irma tracks west and avoids Juffa but sadly brings so much destruction to others.

Our final weekend provides more British pastimes with the local Sheep Fair. Tombolas, lucky dips, fair ground rides, dancing sheep, prancing dancers and of course, lots of pristine sheep plus lengthy discussions with grand children about the best use of their pocket money and whether there might possibly be a candy floss (sugar candy) in it for them...but only after the chickens, ducks, donkeys, tortoises and of course sheep have been admired and inspected. Nevertheless, the Sheep Fair judging carries on regardless -with little interference, or notice, from our gang.