Back on the water after FOUR months

Date: Aug 24, 2019 

Weather: Sunny, searingly hot 
Waters: Our usual spot north of the SAF firing zone, off western Singapore
On board: C, A, J1, J2, R and Pudding  

What's kept us away from the water for so long? An assortment of things, mostly, finding a date when everyone was available - not travelling or having work to do, or getting married (as J2 and R did, yay!) - and getting the winds and tides to be in our favour. It's almost like asking for all the planets to be aligned.  

But here we were on a scorcher of a Saturday, with everyone out of bed late, as usual. It's really hard for us to be on the water any earlier than noon. So we set out for our default destination north of the SAF firing range because it's a much shorter boat ride than going to the Southern Islands.  

It has been so long since the last outing that Pudding was a bit un-nerved by the roar of the boat engine. We can tell because he was moving about restlessly a lot more than on the last outing in April, when he made himself comfortable on the boat seats, across laps. This time, he stayed firmly on deck, drooling.   
  

Liverpool's lucky charm. Nine hours after he donned
this red cap, the team blew Arsenal away 3-1 at Anfield.

He hates wearing hats, but had no choice with this one.
It stayed on. 

J1, bested by the heat and his own son's dander, retreated below deck ... but the dog followed, which kind of defeated the purpose of taking a break from his dog. 

On board this blistering afternoon, we ate Royals Cafe mini pies and Grandma's banana walnut bread and listened to songs off Bruce Springsteen's Western Stars album. (OK, there was Toto's Africa, Taylor Swift's Lover and some Fleetwood Mac too.)

A rare family shot, given how everyone hates photos like this. Photo taken by R, so
we simply had to have another shot with her in it, hence the following one:  

Pudding, front and centre, puts on his best photo face. Photo by C.

Past-trip ablutions for LW2.