Weather

I couldn't close my reporting on Japan without giving an account of the weather there.  If you live on the sea the weather does have a pretty big effect on you after all.  Michael constantly checks the condition on his iPhone, in fact it might be said he's becoming rather obsessive about it.  He can't change it, only react to what comes our way.  And what came our way was rather unpleasant for a few days.

The First Sunrise

On the last leg, Mother Nature had something nasty in store for us.  We thought rather arrogantly that the Inland Sea would be less of a threat than the open Pacific,  We were very wrong.  As we passed under the great Seto-Ohashi bridge - it was to be closed to railway traffic due to high winds a couple of hours later - we could feel the storm building.  We had started our journey at 7 and made good timing up to that point, passing under the spans at about 10:30.  The last half, which was about 25 miles, took us until 4 to reach our final berth at Nio Marina.  Naturally the 35 - 50 mile per hour wind was in our face and the 15 foot seas were hitting across the starboard bow.  As we eventually made the left hand turn towards port, all the energy then changed to hit our beam and also caused us to surf in a corkscrew manner.  We did eat up the final bit quickly though and only had to maneuver behind the sea wall of the marina to reach safety.  Michael and I had stayed at the wheel for the entire leg and we were both soaked through. An inspection later showed that the constant buffeting had snapped a steel strap inside one of the engine compartments.  It held a water tank and had that come loose we would have had serious problems had it caused that engine to close down.

Weather

I think we may be losing our Northern European grit.  Obviously, the reason N. Europeans led the way in the development of culture is mostly to do with weather.  If the sun's always shining you can loll about having fun, but if it's freezing cold and raining, you have to get indoors.  And to do that you have to have some doors to get in!  And once you've put up a building, you have to decorate it and then amuse yourself.  It's not easy.

Now we've been out here in America's playground for nearly 30 years and I think we're starting to lose it.  We've had continuous rain for four days and now it looks like it's going to snow for another three.  I have to say that it's made me rather bad tempered, and S.W.M.B.O. has become somewhat depressed.  Let's face it, when we were back in the old country we would have shrugged this stuff off and just gone down the pub.  Last evening, for Heaven's sake we even canceled a date at a local and stayed home and huddled by the fire.  What the hell has gone wrong with us?

WEATHER

It's started to get colder earlier in the week.  It went down to 45 one morning, and this a week after it hit 97 on my deck one afternoon.  Maybe I'm just one of those difficult people, but I don't seem happy when it gets very cold or very hot.  If I had to choose I supppose I would opt for the cold weather as you can always put another sweather on, or get out those thermals.

Soon however, we'll be over the heat and through the fire season which arrives usually in October.  Then it will be hard to imagine walking around in T-shirts and shorts, as we keep our heavy gear near the door.

Just to remind us of what's coming here's a picture from last winter - it snowed a bit!  Always good to recruit a wife who knows how to wield a shovel.  Good girl!