Sur-reality

It's been over 24 hours now and our return to the tropics and Sea Piper is becoming more real than surreal.
We generally experience this feeling of not quite believing where we are as we move back and forward between our southern life and our northern life.
It's actually very enjoyable and exciting, though sometimes I wish we could bring our two worlds of friends and family a little geographically closer .
Sea Piper was as spruce a lady as she's ever been thanks to the ministrations and flair of Peter, our good friend who has his own tiny boat at Breakwater Marina but who keeps an eye on Sea Piper whilst enjoying a bit of air conditioning, fridge space and room to stand up whilst inside a boat; three things denied to him on his own boat. He describes it as his summer office space - he runs his own cleaning business which has him working evenings and doing relevant paperwork in the daytime so he's very happy to spend this time on Sea Piper.

A beautiful welcome home to Sea Piper

We came aboard yesterday morning to spotless decks then opened the cabin door to a scene of frangipanni blooms, both in a vase and scattered on the table, alongside two bottles of beautiful wine. Add to this the cooled air from the air conditioner whose excess moisture was being (cleverly) gravity-fed into the kitchen tidy as the draining pump chose to pack up the day after we had left in December.
As Pete wasn't around for the first couple of months of summer, we owe the lack of mould in the boat to the constant attendance of my brother David and marina friends Carolynne and Ted who tag-teamed to keep our cranky air conditioner going.
It's repair is another job on the list for this month along with a trip to the top of the mast to replace a shackle for the Code Zero. Not something Royden's looking forward to I suspect.
Ex-cyclone Tim hasn't brought strong winds to Townsville this week as first predicted but there were a few showers yesterday then a couple of heavy rain dumps overnight. The clouds are bulking up again as I write but the overcast and cooler conditions are welcomed by locals as it's been pretty humid and hot, but rain-free, up here for the past few months (bit like down south but with more humidity).
It's certainly made for an easy climate adjustment for us and maybe after this Low passes the Dry, and those south-easterly trade winds, will be not too far away.