October 25

Here we still are at Makongai. I missed hooking up with Craig at Mbengga which was unfortunate. But Mbengga is south and the wind is out of the south and it was fairly brisk - around 20 knots. It is really miserable to bash into the wind under motor so we opted to wait. The last time we did it - we swore up and down "Never again!". It is really rough on the boat and sucks fuel down like crazy. The risks of trying to hook up with people on a sailboat! Dragon Lady left tonight and they reported that it was "Ok" - but I don't consider 20k apparent gusting to 30 (on the nose) "OK", though they did report seas only 2-3ft. We will leave tomorrow.  

We are plowing thru a ton of books in this week of being stuck at Makongi. Its really not so bad - it's very pretty and I can think of worst places to be stuck - like Pago Pago in American Samoa .  

Craig had mentioned in an email that he wondered if I was still the same person as I was at Microsoft. I presume he means loud, manic, goofy, crazy and emotional. It made me think a bit. I guess I am, it's just that I live on a sail boat. I am probably less manic. Being a fulltime Mom makes me try to be really even so I can set a good example and spending 24-7 with my mate, forces you to be a bit gentler. I am much less stressed although sometimes I miss the rush of the busy business. My life is fairly simple and straight forward and it does not create a lot of craziness. I am still fairly loud and I do talk fast particularly after cocktails. My father used to say that people don't change dramatically after the age of 12 and there is some truth to that. The essence of who you are is pretty well etched - you might do dramatically different things in your life but you remain the same person inside. So, I am the same Kate in a better and more mellow environment.  

I have been fairly diligent about school this week since we have the time. Jonah has been started subtraction and is really doing well. He has been really focusing on reading skills and is learning how to sound out words. I am very excited about his sudden eagerness to focus on reading skills. Today he seemed bored and suggested we skip school so we did a bunch of fun activities instead which were really school but because I said they weren't, he was excited about them. He wrote out the numbers 1 thru 30. We made crowns (cutting, coloring, good hand eye coordination exercises). We played dice and he counted a lot. Silly boy.