The evening is cool. Literally. The weather has returned to some kind of normal. Saying that, the storm which passed us a few days ago is rapidly intensifying to the west, and is about to hit Central America as a major hurricane: Hurricane Iota.

We have clouds above us tonight as soft as a painting. People are moving up down the prom under orange street lamps. Music is playing. In Bonaire, music is usually a mix of Spanish-sung, nearby mainland rhythms. It’s a really beautiful and mellow sound.

I made potato salad earlier and Jack is frying up some pork. We just ate it outside in the dark cockpit.

Meanwhile, Lu’s mock exams start tomorrow. I have to download her English Literature exam at 4:30am – which is 8:30am U.K. time. I’ve learnt through rather painful experience that if I don’t, the exam disappears from the learning platform after about 30 minutes. She has until 1pm then, our time to upload it. The school has asked us to adhere to and to respect exam conditions. A set time to do it – and closed book. No peeping.

Maths is the next exam after English Lit tomorrow morning. I think Lu has re-done the whole of her maths curriculum in the last two months. It’s been her hardest subject by far; higher tier maths. She realised that she’d been, in her own words, ‘overconfident’ about it last year.

I don’t think that was entirely her fault. The school seemed to set the bar quite low – and then hit them with a really hard end-of-year paper. Which turned out to be the standard the kids needed for higher tier. Thanks for the heads-up, guys.

Schooling on a boat is often a strange experience. In all honesty, I don’t think I’d say I’d really recommend it. Not when you are following the curriculum back home anyway. There is definite power and insider knowledge in a bricks and mortar school. Especially as these exam results count for university and if Lu wants to do science for her career, which at the moment she does, she needs the strong maths.

We’ve reached a crossroads for now. All the intensive revision is coming to a close. In this balmy evening, time has made this decision for us. The grind of work is done.

And we’ve made a friend along the way. Philippe who, from lockdowned Paris, has been happy to help Lulu every day. That part has been nothing short of a miracle. Brought to us by Patrice, who just shrugs like he was planning it all along. He makes that French sound. Pffff.