The rain goes on and on. I realize I have to fabricate a low lying cockpit cover to try and keep the majority of the rain out of the cockpit. Off I go and set to work. I also charge up the second battery. I have a major phobia of the battery being flat as I am blown onto a lee shore and so being unable to start the engine. Accordingly I have two batteries both of which I charge obsessively.

It is very damp, hot and dark but I scurry around cutting a tarpaulin to size for the cockpit cover.

Then happens the most violent thunderstorm I have, maybe, ever experienced. The sky is black at 2:00 in the afternoon. Lightning blasts down into the harbor and thunder cracks at insane volume. I am so scared and hide in the cabin as rain hammers down so hard that visibility is reduced to 5 meters.

So I brew up some coffee on the amazing spirit cooker that I have grown to love and settle in until the storm to passes over.

The storm does not pass over but grows wilder and frankly very scary. I expect to be fried by lightning at any moment.

I have my IPhone and earbuds and settle down to listen to a book I have bought from Audible.com. It is a detective story called Whisky From Small Glasses. It is set in Campbeltown, the town where I was born. It is very well read with perfect rendition of Glaswegian, West Highland and Ulster accents. It mixes Highland wit and jocularity with unspeakable violence. So far from the gentleness of Okinawa but it is where I come from.

The storm howls and roars on, the boat tugs at her mooring ropes, as I listen to a story that has so many cultural references to my early life. Great afternoon!

Extreme!