Strafed

F and Panagiota went paddleboarding again.  I watched them in the gathering gloom - one collecting rubbish and the other figuring out how to be a clown on a paddleboard.  Even the wind was hot last night.

After the usual fuss with a hose on the aft balcony (I maintain a cautious distance but do supervise to ensure all my paddleboards are properly washed before being put away again), some food and a phone call with Mr B, I was unceremoniously manipulated into my backpack and dragged across to the beach too.  

By this stage it was dark.  We sat on hot rocks, well below street level and breathed warm air.  F swatted at insects that attempted to land on her, and pulled prickly bits out of her seat, and we both watched Batty Bat and his cousins whirling around above the acacias.

One Batty Bat even checked us out so closely that F lurched backward as he flew at her head and then swooped down over me and flicked away again.  Bats aren't going to fly into us; he was just pinging us to see why the sounds reflecting off us differed from those pinging off rocks and trees.  He might have wanted to know if we could raise any insects.  Bats in our backyard in Havant used to follow us around if we ran about the garden shaking the bushes after sunset.

We watched ferries going out (layers of lights like a moving party), and a container ship coming in (one long chain of deck lights, and a steaming light).  F pointed out fishing boats (red over white) and a pilot boat racing out (white over red), and the navigation lights on a few yachts moseying about in the dark.  There are a lot of lights out on the water here.  It is a nice way to bring our day to a peaceful close before bed-time, sitting on the rocks looking at lights and stars in the dark.