Monday 25th August

Up anchor, motor out of the bay. Slight course adjustment from 320 to 90 .. and eastward bound we go, down the coast to Cape George. Fortunately the rain has lessened by the time we round the cape and tuck into Ballantyne's Cove Wharf in the shadow of the bulbous pine covered hill.

There's a seafood shack here, where we have fish and chips later, and a Bluefin Tuna exhibition. Oh, and showers $2 for 5 minutes!! Lots of sailboats here, unusually, including a particularly large and spectacularly ugly ketchnextdoor. It's for sale. I suspect they'll need to pay someone to take it away.

Later, after supper, J is down below typing on his laptop by the light of a headtorch, which he prefers to use, rather than turn a cabin light on. I have no such qualms, though in fact I'm writing this by the lastbit of sunset and a couple of orange dock lights, up in the cockpit. It'sa balmy evening and I can't bear to be in the stuffy cabin. Behind me, on the old fishing dock a coupld of young lads are fishing in the harbour, though I don't think shouting and cussing is going to encourage the fish to bite- and it doesn't. They're picked up, and leave empty-handed.

The harbour, likemost here, is made of massive granite-y boulders forming defensive walls and arms at the entrance. Gulls have colonised the outer edges, standing each to a rock, all facing out to sea, stilllives, an art installation. One stray bobs uncertainly on the water, a little plastic bird, floating in the stillness. It's inspecting the rocks, looking for an easy exit to hop onto. Itbobs up to one - stops- inspects - rejects with a sniff - and paddles on to the next. Three rocks down, and I've almost given up watching, when it suddenly stands, up to its ankles in seawater, on a submerged rock. So- no hopping, wing flapping, slippery slidey like the shags on the bigred buoymarking the seaward entrance to Charlottetown..

A blast of what sounds like Meatloaf in the cooling silence - then it's off, and I'm left to the gentle slap of the water, the ensign snapping in a littlebreeze, and nearby chink chink chink as a loose halyard hits a mast, and distant high laughing voices of youngsters playing on the rocky beachbeyond the breakwater. Sound carried over water, and it's now too dark towrite, so I and my coffee bucket are going below.