XPost: alt.webtrance, alt.journalism.gonzo, alt.memetics   
   XPost: alt.religion.kibology, alt.slack, alt.society.neutopia   
   XPost: alt.society.zeitgeist, alt.culture.usenet   
   From: Schwann@NOSPAM.webtrance.co.cza   
      
   Talking about dolphins, and other marine life, yesterdays post closed out   
   early because I took an   
   available opportunity to get email sent from the Chief Officer’s cabin this   
   time. I think it helped   
   that a shot a cool still sequence of the second officer’s wife, Sonya, so I   
   got to use the system   
   early? The Fuji is impressive and I’ve been getting cool shots, which I hope   
   Getaway Magazine will   
   find ‘sufficient’ to warrant publishing some kind of travel article. I mean,   
   this trip is the very   
   essence of ‘getting away’, isn’t it? After uploading Sonya and Andre’s stills   
   to their laptop then   
   emailing my piece to the mainland, I hung out in my cabin looking out the   
   window for a few hours.   
   Later, after the usual 6.30 PM supper, I went up to the bow. It is very quiet   
   there with no   
   container refrigeration noises and very little throb from the huge engines. I   
   spot a school of   
   porpoises pacing the ship and shoot off a few shaky seconds on the vidcam. I   
   always take both cams   
   and the tripod when going up front. I hump them in an excellent Lowenpro   
   photographic backpack I got   
   back in Cape Town. It’s just the trick for the job as you can carry spare   
   clips, batteries, and even   
   a soft drink, with the tripod lashed to its side. There are always excellent   
   photo opportunities up   
   at the bow so one needs to be prepared. After the sun has set, at about 8.45   
   PM, I head back to my   
   cabin and watch half of ‘The Shipping News’, which number One tells me he   
   enjoyed. Although it is   
   excellent, I’m too tired to finish the movie, promising myself I’ll finish it   
   in the morning.   
      
   Tuesday 16th June 2004 Day 10: I guess I’m starting to think about dry land   
   again, today being my   
   last full day at sea. I’ll do my take on passengers and crew after   
   disembarking so as to make my   
   conclusions on a complete data bank, but right now I’m convinced that Mavis   
   Kennedy is the weirdest   
   person on board, and not me. I saw something big and grey jump out of the   
   water this morning before   
   lunch but couldn’t identify the species. There are ships all around us, big   
   ones. They come by a few   
   miles off, but one still feels that they are sometimes too close. Radar can   
   only take you so far. It   
   can’t think, at least the ageing radar on this ship can’t. It was state of the   
   art once. Today   
   should be a big day because I’m disembarking tomorrow sometime so this means   
   that I have to pack all   
   my belongings coherently today. However, at the time of writing, 2.29 PM, I do   
   not feel inclined to   
   do anything so am delaying this for tonight, after which I aim to finish   
   watching ‘The Shipping   
   News’. The last few days I’ve only been listening to Weather Report, Airto   
   Moreira, Chick Corea  and   
   Flora Purim. Stuff like ‘Light as a Feather’, ‘Return to Forever’ and   
   ‘Birdland’, has ruled over the   
   Drums’n Bass, House and Rap Pop I brought along. The little Sony speakers   
   (SRS-T55) I got patched   
   into the laptop’s headphone output sound much better than the trashy speakers   
   that come with the   
   Sony Vaio TR3-AP3 laptop I’m using, even though they chew batteries like   
   crazy. The Fuji is also   
   battery crazed, so I’m constantly recharging NIMH batteries, which take like   
   forever to recharge.   
      
   Wednesday 17th Day 11: Today I did breakfast but it didn’t matter because even   
   though we could see   
   Las Palmas from 9.00 AM in the morning they kept us waiting for a pilot until   
   nearly 10.00 PM, by   
   which time I’d gone all around the ship taking what photos I thought I may   
   have missed but probably   
   didn’t. Although I am not in a hurry to get off the ship, I’m also looking   
   forward to being ashore,   
   after 11 days, so this is a bit of a contradiction. Consequently, I did some   
   serious pacing,   
   standing on the bridge with my binoculars and making the Captain nervous   
   enough to actually offer me   
   an explanation for why they were making us wait, something to do with   
   regulations, and a ship that   
   got there before us. I knew he should have kept us to 20 knots and knot reduce   
   speed to 17 knots   
   because although we were supposedly ahead of schedule at the time, the final   
   result was that an   
   insignificantly small tramp freighter beat us to it and we had to wait until   
   it deigned to vacate   
   our parking space. By the time we got the gang plank down it must have been   
   11.00 PM, and by that   
   time I’d been ready to go for more than 12 hours. I think everyone wanted me   
   to stay on board for   
   another night but there was no weigh. I made it quite clear that I was   
   disembarking whatever, and   
   consequently found myself on the dock some hour later being escorted to a   
   waiting taxi by my steward   
   Russel and the ship’s agent, Eric, who gave the taxi driver instructions on   
   which hotel to take me   
   to and also paid. WEithout further ado I was whisked into the city of Las   
   Palmas, via the police   
   station in the harbour where they summarily stamped my passport. Thus did   
   Schwann arrive in Europe.   
   After arriving at the Hotel Concorde, at midnight, I dumped my stuff and made   
   for the streets, being   
   somewhat starved of dry land. Unfortunately, my pacing up and down the bridge   
   for a day had taken   
   its toll on my feet and energy, so, after being offered ‘a quiet place’, then   
   dancing girls, by   
   Moroccan banditos, I elected to return to the hotel and check my hotmail   
   account, which was, of   
   course, at 98% full. I had mostly good news, except for a nasty post from John   
   Shirley, who enclosed   
   his phone number but told me not to call him because he is pissed off with   
   South Africans again.   
   Maybe he doesn’t know that I know that African politics is Shiite, but   
   American politics is   
   uber-Shiite – sigh. I aim to mail him for coherence and will report back. I   
   get to bed after 2.00   
   AM, knowing that tomorrow is going to be even longer than today.   
      
   Thursday 18th Day 12: Breakfast is overlooking the Las Palmas beach front, a   
   wonderful sight. White   
   beaches, palm trees and the winding promenade accompanying the natural sweep   
   of the beach, plus lots   
   of people in swimwear abound, but there isn’t time for too much sight seeing   
   here because I need to   
   get to Tenerife as quickly as possible, and this is why I’m taking the   
   Jet-foil ferry, which makes   
   the 4 hour crossing into one hour. Although it’s only 9.00 AM, the first ferry   
   has already left at   
   8.00 AM and the next one is at 5.00 PM, so I elect to go by taxi from Las   
   Palmas to another port, an   
   hour’s drive away, where there is a jet-foil ferry at 2.00 PM. The taxi driver   
   speaks a little   
   English, so I learn something about the island while on the way. Having been   
   late for all the   
   ferries until now, I’m not too surprised when we get there at midday and I   
   have to wait 2 hours in   
   the blinding sun till we leave at 2.00 PM, but this eventually happens and I’m   
   back on water, this   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)