The Red Sea and the Heat

Forty one degrees on deck this afternoon, with a following wind at almost exactly our own speed, which means no wind at all. The Red Sea in August is, I am reliably informed by everyone on board, the price you pay for the Mediterranean.

The pool has been filled again but the water in it is now approximately the temperature of a bath that has been left ten minutes too long. Getting in does not cool you. It simply moves the problem.

I conducted a stash inventory this evening, quietly, with the cabin door shut. The findings were mixed.

Tea: excellent. Sealed, dry, unaffected, forty two bags remaining of an initial sixty. Biscuits: intact, slightly soft, morale value undiminished. Crisps: fine, and in one case inflated to the point of near detonation, which I am told is normal.

Chocolate: total loss. Every bar has melted, cooled, and re formed into a shape that is no longer recognisable as a product. One has fused with its own wrapper. I ate part of it anyway, with a teaspoon, standing over the sink, at 22:00, and I regret nothing.

Elena, when I described the disaster at breakfast without admitting the scale of the stash, said that everyone does this on their first hot leg and that the correct storage location is the dry store, which is climate controlled, and that I could have simply asked.

I have simply asked. The survivors have been relocated. Container watched the entire operation from the pillow, which she now regards as hers, and which, if I am honest, it now is.