Saturday 6th July. Day 13. Sailing on Lake Victoria!

Ahoy land lubbers! Had a bit of a lie in and a chilled out morning, reading my book on the balcony. The sun caressed my shoulders and neck as dappled shadows danced with playful zephyrs romancing on the dew kissed lilac flowers and lemon grass leaves shimmering in the morning haze.... 
Karen, Bex and I went to see our neighbours - Resty, Francis, Joanne and Linda.  They showed us their beautiful wedding photos - so colourful.  They got married in Francis' village.  Resty changed her dress about 4 times on her wedding day - started off in white, then bright colourful, shiny dresses.  We gave their children some colouring books and pencils.

Mid-morning we all packed up and drove to Lake Victoria with a picnic lunch.  It was a very dusty drive - the houses and trees on the way resembled a martian landscape, with thick brick red dust from the murum road.

Lake Victoria  is amazing (unlike her Beckhamesque namesake) - a huge freshwater sea, grasshopper green with snails that are infested with bilharzia worms that can make you really sick, so we had to avoid them.

We shared a wonderful picnic with the wildlife, including hover flies, (like damsel flies mated with tiger moth aeroplanes, and the soldier ants keen to nibble any exposed flesh!  

After lunch we ventured out on the lake on hobby cats (cat-a-meringues)!  Andrew's friend Steve (a pilot), also had a catty - meringue, and I was the crew and lookout, while Vikram was the helmsman, and Steve sat back and relaxed!  After several leagues, we thought we saw the Kenyan coast, but in fact we were still only 1km from where we started.  For several minutes, which seemed like hours, we seemed to be stationary.  Steve described this as 'being in irons', a nautical expression meaning we had stalled and were stationary without any wind, and no hope of going anywhere.  We also 'ran with the wind', 'beat', 'tacked' and 'jibed'.  Next year, Strictly come Sailing!  It was brilliant.  A great feeling when we ran with the wind on one hull.

We got back home, and went for a run again - Woan-Yi on video camera today, Vikram in fast uphill mode and myself.  We were overtaken by two 10 year old boys running in shoes without laces, and never out of breath up a 1 in 4 hill.  

As I expect you can tell, Vikram has assisted with most of today's blog! Tune in tomorrow for more "pieces of late!" from Captain Jack(ie)!