Day 55. 106,695 words.

2018 and the hits just keep on coming.

This morning my dad sent me a message to let me know that his lifelong friend, my godfather Rob, had died.

Rob was another of those wonderful mates of the family, and although – classically – he had gone to the wrong church on the day of my christening, he was as good a godfather as you could hope for. He gave me a night job at his supermarket when I was a university student, and that kept me in booze money nicely.

Rob loved to sail. He was sailing buddies with my dad and he didn’t stop when my dad gave up the pursuit (or at least went casual with it). He carried on, with his trips and his racing and his constant repair and building work. Sailing was his great passion.

Last night, off the coast of Mandurah, he was lost at sea when his yacht capsized. Another of his crew was also killed in the capsizing, but Rob (who may have been injured at the time) was lost in the dark and his body was not found until midday.

I suppose, if anything can be said, it is that Rob died doing what he loved, and a sailor’s death is preferable to a slow death of cancer. He would prefer to have died than another of his crew – if he’d survived, it would have destroyed him. And as my dad said, he made it to seventy and that’s not a bad innings.

So long, uncle Rob. Thanks for all the good times, the yacht races, and the shelf-stacking through the final years of the 20th Century. You will be missed.

Avast, me hearty. Avast.