Last day in LP - maybe...

Snap
Tue 8 Dec 2015 09:41
No time for the blog today- last day before departure tomorrow.  Well, that’s a lie.  Not about the leaving, but about the amount of time I have.  I got up early to go to Corte Ingles, but it opens at 10, not at 8.  So I’m parked in a caff, again. Lovely caff, and a nice cafe con leche is just 1 Euro. Quite good eh?  But there again, bad, because it proves that all the caffs in France that I have ever visited were a total rip-off.  Poutain. 

Last day purchases before a transat are invariably frantic and/or daft - no more shops for three weeks!  I urgently need to buy a long cable to play audio from the laptop out through cockpit speakers.  OK. not that urgent I suppose.  Other last-minute purchases would normally be chewing gum of which I have at least a dozen boxes, and chocolate (6 massive bars and no Glynn to scoff the lot this time) .  Yeah, ok, I also need to buy some more bacon.  I already bought some bacon yesterday, but then discovered half of it still in the bottom of a bag this morning, dammit.  So I’ll have lots of fried bacon later this morning, but most of it’s been out of a fridge far too long. Better bin it.  

I also need to buy a logbook.  Not a stupid purchase at all, very sensible in fact.  Although, back down a bit on the sensibleness -  I should already have one.  Hm.  There again, a logbook would normally be the essential reference document to pass from one watch to the next, and since I’m solo that isn’t an issue.i  But I’ll write down the boat position from time to time, compass heading etc,  in case the nav electronics goes on holiday.  And it also might be an idea to write at the top of each page “NO, THIS IS NOT A NIGHTMARE MATT-  you really ARE in the North Atlantic on your own!”  Heck.  And I promised Mindy I wouldn’t write things that were too worrying - she won’t like that.  Eek! 

Actually, it’s a bit weird about setting the leaving time and date.  I’ve set it to be Wednesday, cos everyone has asked - when are you leaving?  Eventually I have said uh, well, ok, Wednesday.  Well what time Wednesday?   

So I've said Wednesday.... but - so what?  Normally, with an event of any kind, you agree the time and date amongst family etc, and -that’s it - you’d  plan everything around that.  The more people we tell the more fixed the date becomes.  Then we book travel, planes and ferries and its pretty much cast in stone. 

But I’m on my own, on a boat. No pressure to leave as the lifers here in LP are proving, so I won’t get evicted until November 2016 for the next ARC.  So, heh, I can say i’m leaving tomorrow Wednesday - but I can change it just as easily, and it doesn’t affect anyone else at all.  Bit of an odd feeling really. 

I came a cropper with this in Lanzarote.  The guys installing the watermaker asked when I was leaving, obviously working our their schedule.  I innocently said well, I’ll be leaving this week if possible but if the watermaker isn’t finished, yerknow, the following week, obviously, whenever it’s ready? Pathetic.  It took them three weeks to do eight hours of "finishing off" 

Other boat crews had been told and had all agreed that “We’re leaving on Saturday!” for example, so they rush around telling everyone about the deadline.  And weirdly, everyone obeys the deadline.  Nobody says well, it’s only a made-up deadline innit?  Nobody at all.  Which  means that nice flexible Me gets pushed down the queue.  Which I think is why everything took an extra three weeks on top of the two months I was away.  

Hm, that “agreed deadline” is kinda a human condition, dya think?  Lots of people - perhaps most of us - just love things to be decided in advance, with attendant nice warm secure feelings.  I remember having a meeting at work years ago, where one issue was whether to buy some advertising, or not.  The deadline was the following Thursday. So I said we could wait until next Thursday afternoon to finally decide.  Oh!!  Very unsettling!  Nobody liked it at all. "Seems to ME like you can’t make a decision, Matthew, hm?”.  Well, no - I’ve made the decision - we can think about it as much as we like until Thursday.  We can decide to buy the advertising, but then a few days later, meh, maybe not. We leave it flexy till then?   See?   Nope, they wanted a Decision, proper businesslike. Not making a decision is even called “dithering” - pejorative term.  Decisive - much better.  Well, maybe, maybe not. 

So, anyway, whatever, I’ve agreed to be in St Marrtin by 8th Jan, or 7th to be on the safe side.  Three week trip .... means the real deadline for leaving is er …  oops - next week!  Thought I had loads more time than that, but I’ve already mucked about for a month.  Hey over there - hurry up! - I’m leaving TOMORROW.  Yes, first thing.  Ok, not quite first thing cos I have to get the twenty buck back for the entry cards.  9 ish, then.