off again

The on again / off again Tassie sail is on again. So I'm off again. Ten days, leaving tomorrow night. A timely distraction from navel-gazing irks. And hopefully a chance to see whales. And hopefully not freeze to death.

I think I’ve mentioned how cold it’s been… and it’s not just my acclimatisation to the subtropics talking. Even the cat thinks it's cold (which I guess is not the bolstering this argument needs given the general heat-seeking tendencies of cats). Anyway... I know he's feeling the cold because instead of sleeping all day in his box, he makes frequent trips to the woodstove, where he sits and miaows to be let in, like it’s a viable doorway or something. Or a portal into cat heaven where there’s a pink velvet cushion bathed in 24-hour sun encircled by a low-flying flurry of moths.

But back to the cold… I’ve been to Tassie once before. I was nine. It was summer. We camped. It rained for three weeks straight. There was snow on Cradle Mountain. We nearly got blown off Mount Wellington. In short, we froze during what was supposedly the most hospitable season in southern latitudes.

So I’m not sure about the wisdom of ringing in winter in Tasmania. On a boat.

There had better be whales. Or a pink velvet cushion…