Boxing Day – Traditionally a day for the pantomime and today I played Cinderella! (Oh no she didn’t!!) Today was the boy’s SCUBA diving day and we were up early packing snorkel gear into bags and trying our hardest to get CJ to blow his nose. (Where is the clown with a never ending line of coloured hankies up a sleeve when you need him?) The end of a cold was not good timing for his first dive lessons. They left early and I decided to Skype Ami in Australia before scrubbing the decks in my ragged clothes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Ahhh!) There followed a frustrating hour or two as Skype seemed to have lost my contacts and wouldn’t open without a password. By the time I had it set up it was the middle of the night in Aus and nobody was online in England. I commenced a heap of laundry feeling very cross. (Oh yes she did!) With no sign of the fairy godmother I then cleaned the topsides before firing up the laptop again to catch up with the blog. It had now saved everything as ‘word2007’ documents and I only have 2003. I breathed deeply and continued in a new document….. And then, joy of joys the fairy godmother did her stuff and I had a call from Dan and Bob who were at my sister’s with my mum and nephews. Oh! Was I a happy character? (Oh yes she was!) We chatted for a while and Dan promised to get Bob’s Skype sorted out when he took him home shortly after. Low and behold half an hour later my boys at home Skyped just as my boys afloat returned home. See - Every pantomime has a happy ending.

   The boy’s diving adventure hadn’t exactly gone well. CJ was unable to equalise the pressure in his ears and spent much of the day in the dive boat missing the fab underwater scenes that Si, Suin and Ben saw. They weren’t happy like Cinderella.

I break from our Boxing Day Pantomime to tell another story of Cinderella, a story of one man clearing an autohelm bearing through customs…….. Caribbean style……………………..  

Simon: I’d like to clear this autohelm bearing through customs please.

Customs Officer: Boat name?

Simon: Brindabella.

Customs Officer: Brindabella? What ‘appened to Cinderella? Are you de ugly sister Mon?

Simon: No I’m the handsome prince.

Customs Officer: Well Mon – You’re screwed!

Sorry, I just had to share that, we thought it was very funny!

In an attempt to jolly up the rest of the day we fired up our Cobb BBQ for the first time this trip and cooked marinated kingfish with baked potatoes and vegetable kebabs; we ate our food in the cockpit while insects ate us!