‘Does anyone else feel slightly sick?’

We looked at each other. ‘It is a little weird.’ For three weeks we’ve lived in this same space, except with no movement. Well, the odd creaking from the metal stands holding Quest up. But no real movement. Suddenly our home is bobbing away. Let me just sit down to write this.

It is so nice to say good-bye to that ladder. I cannot tell you, dear reader. Just hop on and hop off the boat onto the pontoon. And we’re closer to the bathrooms, the showers, the laundry and the place where Lulu sits in the afternoon chatting to her friends. Ahhh. In an instant, everything feels easier. No more worrying if people are going to fall off Quest. Well, not with any large thud anyway.

Quest went into the water like a slightly embarrassed lady. She touched it gingerly as if she was getting into a hot bath. The slipway guys pulled her over. Jack and I jumped onboard. Jack turned over the engine. One, two, three times. Nothing. He came down below and primed the engine manually. Where was Falco when we needed him? Falco the mechanic’s car blew out this morning. On the fourth attempt, after priming, the Yanmar burst into the life. We whooped (well, I did), Jack looked relieved and the slipways guys smiled, bemused. We were good. Off to sail the world now? No, just ten metres to tie up on the pontoon.

Since tying up, we do have one leaky sea-cock. Hehehe. It’s the galley pipe. Shiva, our fixer of things, came straight away. He’s done a temporary fix and is replacing the pipe on Wednesday. We have Superb Sails coming too to put the sails on. Falco as well.

The air-conditioning technician is coming tomorrow – to service our own air-con unit. Did I mention we have three air-con units on Quest? That’s a boat built in Florida for you. We haven’t used them in a few years. If we get the saloon one working, we hope to use it for reverse-cycle heating after we sail back to the UK. Cold winters in Wales. And maybe… just maybe on the hottest Caribbean days, we can run it for a couple of hours. Just if we need to. You know, since they take up so much room in our cupboards! Not that I’m addicted to Richard’s unit or anything. And Lulu’s 100% wrong – I definitely didn’t flirt with Richard. Or his air-con unit.

Next step: sailing! Oh boy.