Ding Dong
31 May 2020
Stuart Letton
Lockdown. Day 86.
Way back, as hopefully you read one time in the distant past, I mentioned, at least once, that we're in lockdown on our own private, 5* (as advertised) resort island.
But eighty six days? I now fully understand why the norm is for people to take only two week vacations. Any more and seriously, you'd go completely nuts. One of my favourite movie quotes, which I've used here in the past, is from Robert DeNiro in The Intern. Asked why, as a retired seventy something he wants a job in a tech driven business he says, "As for retirement, that's an ongoing relentless effort in creativity."
Ditto lockdowns.
But hey, on the whole we're doing great. Our Ian's online fitness classes out on the Moondeck have a trail of lost kilos leading to and fro. Not to mention a trail of sweat. Our mid sections have muscles we didn't know about and slowly but surely, the Time Bandit video backlog is also slimming. I'm now almost half way through Indonesia. In addition, I've even written a few more pages of my forthcoming book, Diary of a Sailing Cynic.
Months ago, during one of our early evening beach get togethers we ran a sweep on how long "this" would last. My gut feel was the most pessimistic, and I'm usually a cheery sort, and I put my money on September. The polite folk in the group just smiled, indulging my "WE'RE DOOMED" prognosis. Consequently, our planning and preparation has been based on the idea of a long term vacation. Not only have we been in lockdown for these months but also in yachting shut down. The sails were long ago, covered up, stripped off and packed away. The engines flushed with fresh water, oiled and greased. The running rigging is also stripped off, washed and coiled in a bag somewhere, out the searing sun. Plugged into the dock we have full power for the lights, hot water, radio, TV, microwave and crucially the air con. All the comforts of home.
All that's missing is a door bell.
(If you don't know, my amateurish but hopefully improving videos are on YouTube. Search SV Time Bandit )