We are counting down the hours to our new favorite day of the year. In two short rotations of the earth it will be here, marking an end to the excessive darkness and the beginning of happier brighter days. No, we are not looking forward to the end of the world. We are waiting for the winter solstice.
Currently the sun rises low in the east and makes a halfhearted arc across the southern sky. It shines on us for less than half the day before it makes a quick get away south of west.
Our dinner comes early and the cooking often starts not long past midday, lest we get caught having to do anything in the dim illumination of our cabin lights. The supper dishes are most always done the next morning.
We listen to the rumble of Blue Wing’s engine every day shortly after we wake and before we settle down for the evening. The alternator charges our battery bank supplementing power not provided by the sun in the extra hours of darkness.
My solar shower only makes lukewarm water. The sun is not intense enough to really heat it up and if a cloud moves in, the slow progress towards hot is set back.
Of course, we are lucky. We could be someplace where the days are even shorter. But then again, any place else, we would probably not be living outside.
So we wait for nature and the universe to do its thing and dream of hot showers, longer days, and quiet evenings watching the sunset with after dinner cocktail in hand and clean dishes in the galley.
