Thursday, December 17, 2020

Just the two of us

Date: Dec 16, 2020
Weather: Sunny, then cloudy. Rain to the starboard on the way back. 
Waters: Fairly flat, peak of high tide
On board: C and A  

C and A, being the only two in the family who have begun their year-end vacation, headed out today. The younger people had plans of their own. 

 It was cloudy up east where we live, but actually sunny at the marina. 

C picks the music. A snaps a wefie. 

Still, we did expect it to rain buckets at some point, especially in the mid-afternoon; this has been the weather pattern for the past month. This was why we set out earlier than usual - and also, without the younger people with us, we were actually able to do that. If not for the crappy weather, we might have even taken a longer trip, say, to Lazarus island. 

Rain crimps plans, limits options. (It also makes us wary that fresh leaks may be springing in the basement of our home.) 

We dropped anchor and just chilled to a bottle of prosecco, and put Aretha's Christmas carols on. It was mercifully quiet today, except for Gloria In Excelsis Dio

We had only one sighting of a Brahminy kite swooping down to fish, missing the mark, and then flying back to a tree in the army training ground nearby, as C watched the action on the binoculars. 




No decorating of the boat with baubles and tinsel this year. We didn't do it last year either. It feels like we have run out of time to do it. (We did it in 2017 and 2018.) 

It really feels like time is speeding up, like we are barrelling towards Christmas, even though we began our annual leave at the end of the first week of December. A has realised that attending mass through the year, and especially during Advent, is way of marking out the passage of time. It gives structure to the weeks. It's been nearly a year of mass-less Sundays, and this season, we are already in the third week of Advent. Without witnessing the lighting of the Advent wreath a month ahead of Christmas (starting with a purple candle in the first week, another in the second, a pink candle in the third and a final purple candle a week before Christmas), Advent feels amorphous, without structure. It's the same with the rest of the year, when one would mark the start of the week by attending Sunday mass. Watching streamed proceedings just isn't the same.

As we head towards the end of one Very Strange Year, we take count of the ways life has changed. A year (OK, 10 months for A, and about nine for C) of working from home has saved us time commuting to work and preparing to go to work. We've slummed comfortably in home clothes. Where did the time we saved from commuting and getting dressed for work go? More TV, and with that, lots more snacking. 

We have one home-cooked meal each day at dinner. Lunch has mostly been ordered and delivered by GrabFood or Deliveroo or some such. It is expensive this way, as we have found!  In normal times, we would all have lunched separately, as a break midway through work in the office. 

The dog can't believe his good luck. Scritches and pets on tap all day, every day. 

We have to count our blessings, in that we don't seem in immediate danger of losing our jobs. 

After two hours on this day near the Lim Chu Kang fish farms, the sky began turning dark, so we left our spot. It began raining to starboard, where Puteri Cove, Johor Baru is, and also over Forest City, that mega mixed development built on a man-made island off south-western Johor. 

What torrential rain looks like from out at sea. 
We were dry where we were, though the tiniest 
of droplets could be felt. Puteri Cove.

   
Forest City being pelted.

After this trip, the boat goes in for some fixing. The risers need to be fixed. We turned on the AC below deck to check on it, and it seems to be working fine, despite having been on the blink on the previous trip out.