Time for Heliotrope, at last. Over to Gore Bay, pretty early, to get the cover off, clean the deck and cockpit, and polish the topsides. Rather too much sun sun, of course for such things, but ameliorated by a gentle onshore breeze. The old girl looked good, in spite of being now 36 years old (and in the family for the past 28 or so).

Back home we hid a while from solar rays (in other words took naps), then Sue painted a bedroom wall while I did some pier work and went kayaking. With the Bay windless and flat I paddled through acres of pine pollen and cottonwood fluff. The amount of pollen produced is astronomically prodigious—the kayak split a yellow sea.

The water remains up, in fact, perhaps still inching upwards. The old mudflats are now home to countless pollywogs who are starting to get round and chubby in preparation for losing tails and growing legs. Gonna be a lot of frogs.

And then, we Sue and I went swimming for the first time this year. Obviously, we lived to tell the tale.