It has been a pretty exciting week around here and this photo sums it up perfectly.

That’s Steve holding a shiny new, out of the box outboard.

Which means;

A. He’s home and

B. We are upwardly mobile again.

The pace of everyday life on board has changed this week, in more ways than one.

The weather was lousy all week, more rain and wind, but it did allow us to have a couple guilt free lazy days to get used to one another again. Yesterday was a blue-sky-sunshiny day and after all the daily chores were done we took the new outboard for it’s maiden voyage around the harbour. Getting a new out board has been on the wish list for a couple years now but oddly Vanuatu has the best prices in the South Pacific so we’ve been patiently waiting to get here to make the big purchase. That the trusty Mercury 6hp has all but given up the ghost reassured us that our new 9.8hp Tohatsu was a sound investment.

It was a quiet boat ride yesterday, I was content to sit up front, let my guard down and my mind wander as we scooted across the harbour. And Steve was happy to have his hand on the throttle, even if he can’t really open it up until we run it in a few more hours.

It takes us a couple days to adjust when he returns.

On Steve’s part it is catching up on sleep missed during 20 hours of flight time and acclimatizing to what must seem like cold weather after spending the last two months living in 45+ degrees. And for me it is letting go and “allowing” him do things that I have had to do by myself for the last seven weeks; drag the dinghy up the beach, cook dinner.

But, as always, we are back in our groove. Only now we are racing towards the future just a little faster.

Love,

H&S