KATHLEEN’S BIRTHDAY; ANNIE & TREVOR ON S/V IRON BARK; OUTSOURCING
Baquerizo Moreno, Isla San Cristobal, The Galapagos, Ecuador,
Sunday, May 14, 2006

Kathleen’s birthday

Today is Kathleen’s birthday. After a somewhat boozy and late night, we sleep in until well after sunrise and start the day slowly. Thank goodness for the excellent Ecuadorian “Columbia” coffee that we found at the grocery store here in Baquerizo Moreno! It was a job, though, since Ecuadorians, like Mexicans, only grow coffee; they don’t actually have a coffee-drinking culture like Italy, Germany, The Netherlands or even Seattle. At ordinary restaurants in Mexico, they would bring you a pitcher of not-any-more-quite-hot water, a small bottle of Nescafe, condensed milk and a bowl of sugar; you mixed it up yourself. But this ground coffee is delicious, some of the best we have had in a long time. It comes already ground (which is more than we can say for the local Galapagos coffee which is sold to tourists as roasted beans and nobody on this island has a grinder!) in 200-gram sealed envelopes.

We lounge around reading and drinking coffee and hoping we will feel a little better soon. Kathleen is in the midst of several proofreading jobs and thinks she needs to take the laptop ashore and get them done. By 0830 we are dressed and aboard the panga-taxi headed for the dock after first picking up Annie from S/V Iron Bark. San Paulo, one of the several inter-island freighters that ply between The Galapagos and Guayaquil, is anchored off and lighters are already around her to unload her. Both stone steps at the jetty are blocked by a couple of heavy, flat-bottomed lighters, one of them full of empty beer and soft-drink bottles! The panga driver pulls up to the barge and we have to leap over its dirty gunwhales, spring down into the empty bilge and clamber up the other side before we can jump for the dock. Kathleen heads for the internet café to call her mother for Mother’s Day. SKYPE seems to be working just fine today. I set up the laptop in the restaurant where they have a handy 110-volt plug and where the waitresses never infringe upon your privacy you unless you make a distinct signal that you want to order something. They must see the restaurant table area as a sort of railway-station waiting room. You can sit there all day with your computer plugged in. While Kathleen is on the phone next door, Annie sits with me and downloads some of her writings about their recent cruise to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador and Greenland. I have promised Annie to show her how to set up her own blogsite at www.blogger.com.

Annie & Trevor on S/V Iron Bark

We saw them come in on Friday in a yellow and black, gaff-rigged sailboat that reminded me of Badger, Annie Hill’s boat which she made famous through her book about shoestring cruising. It was called Voyaging on a Small Income and came out some fourteen years ago and has been a bestseller ever since. It has become a classic and a best-seller (at least amongst sailing folk, Annie says). Certainly it was a big influence on us. At the time we moved aboard Vilisar five years ago (!) we were very uncertain and frequently quite overwhelmed by it all. We had the vague notion of perhaps sailing around the world but only if we managed to survive the first two years, still had our sanity and were still speaking to each other. I found her book in the Port Townsend Library and devoured it (being on a small income, of course, I borrowed the book from a public lending library!). Besides a lot of “how-to” stuff, many parts of which we are still using, there was the whole argument that you can either spend your life in the daily grind in the hope that at the end of the 45-year (work) plan, you might be alert and alive enough (mentally and physically) to perhaps go sailing. Annie argued that it doesn’t take very much and used her own experience in building a boat (Badger) and setting off sailing. She listed all the thrift measures that she herself had learned about, discussed topics like the most appropriate (and cheap) dinghy (we built Chameleon, one of the two she described in the book), junk rigs (up until recently we had seriously considered converting Vilisar to a junk rig) and a whole host of other topics, nearly all of them exactly the sort of things we needed to get going. Most importantly, the book was a motivation for us. We could, after all, do it. There were no prizes except a real life, a life that you created on your own rather than a life carved out for you by your parents, bosses and peers.

The yellow and black boat turned around and went off to anchor somewhere a distance away. I paid no more heed to it until later, when Trevor and Annie came over in their yellow and black dinghy with yellow sweeps. I invited them aboard. Later they said they always pick the boat in the anchorage they judge to be the one who will know the best way to enter and leave without too much fuss. They picked Vilisar because she had a lot of character, as they said. But it might also have been because her waterline is slimy green, her topsides are now seriously in need of a paint job and no doubt she looks somewhat scruffy.

We have a lovely conversation for an hour in the cockpit at which time Kathleen arrives back in the panga-taxi from the internet café. Introductions all round. It is Kathleen who twigs that we have Annie Hill aboard, the very person who has meant so much to us in getting us this far.

We chat some more and learn that they are on their way to New Zealand after a couple of seasons in Canada’s Maritime Provinces (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, as well as Greenland. Trevor too has been sailing for years and spent a year alone aboard the Wylie II steel boat he built frozen-in in Antarctica. He convinced Annie to marry him in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, and the two of them spent nine months in snow-covered and frozen-in isolation in a fjord in Greenland.

I have spent a lot of time in my younger days in severe cold. I know that you can easily survive even outside if you know your way around and learn to adjust to the cold. Most prairie cities, Winnipeg or Brandon, where I was stationed for several years with the Canadian Army, get temperatures of -40ºC (=-40ºF) for at least some of the winter nights. I know that you can survive and that there is a strange beauty in the rarified winter landscape and pure air of the faraway northland. Having slept outside in a snowbank at -30ºC I think I am entitled to an opinion. And it would take more than a marriage licence to get me to spend any winter time outside again in ice and snow. It is not even the cold or the long nights because the days are often brightly sunny. It’s the length of the winter and sloppy, wet and chilly springtime that finally sickens you of the northern “winters”. But I would love to sail up to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador and maybe even Greenland. I just intend to be in the tropics for the cold parts.

Eventually they leave Vilisar and go ashore for a look-round after inviting us for sundowners around 1730 aboard Iron Bark. It is a super evening; cocktails last until well after the panga-taxis have ceased for the night (they stop about the same time as the London Underground). Trevor kindly rows his two wonky visitors back to Vilisar about 2300.

If you ever get a chance to meet Annie and Trevor, do so. They are absolutely delightful, a fountain of information, of course, and very approachable. I was able to get Annie started on a blogsite (she has been sending out round-robin emails up until now). If you want to read about their adventures including the sojourn under snow in Greenland, visit www.anniehill.blogspot.com. And keep an eye out for her soon-to-be-published The Voyaging Vegetarian. Like Vilisar, they have no fridge or freezer. (Trevor will gladly lay out the costs of a cold beer for you: a cold beer aboard a sailing vessel, he says, will be the most exorbitantly expensive drink you are ever likely to enjoy, and that does not even count the hidden costs of fridges and freezers that regularly break down at awkward moments, requiring you to throw or give away all the frozen steaks you loaded back in Panama.) For us, we have been motivated anew by these terrific people.

Back aboard Vilisar on Sunday afternoon, Kathleen reads Annie’s blog while I finally open up the engine room and go to work to eliminate the big water leak that drips water onto the starting battery whenever I pump out the bilge. I use an automobile sealant and clamp the hose with a stainless steel hose clamp. Dry as pampers. I also finish up re-setting the mast wedges and close up the mast boot again. I may be running out of little jobs I can do before we leave. It looks like we might get out of here on Tuesday after all with a functioning alternator, the bilge pump tight, the sails all repaired and possibly even one or two hitchhikers.

While we are sitting in the restaurant today we meet a young English couple that has crewed on an English yacht from Panama. They are interested in crewing to the mainland. Without realizing it they are probably talking to the only vessel in The Galapagos that is not heading west to French Polynesia. “Yes, we might consider it,” we tell them.

Later, discussing it between ourselves, I argue that two big adults are too much of a good thing. They seem really nice and have experience already. But we can really only accommodate one more large person for sleeping. It also means carrying more water and food though no doubt they would be expected to make a contribution to the food kitty (I must ask Al aboard S/V Morova or Trevor and Annie aboard S/V Iron Bark what their arrangements are when they take crew along). Perhaps we shall offer to take one of them and the other can find another boat or fly (the price of a ticket is about $180 to Guayaquil or Quito). We’ll see. It would certainly be nice to have three people to make the watch-standing easier.


Outsourcing

And, this just in ….


Subject: Outsourcing the Presidency to India

Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States of America will be outsourced to India as of March 31, 2006. The move is being made to save the President's $400,000 yearly salary, and also a record $521 billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead the office has incurred during the last 5 years.
"We believe this is a wise move financially. The cost savings should be significant," stated Congressman Thomas Reynolds (R-WA). Reynolds, with the aid of the Government Accounting Office, has studied outsourcing of American jobs extensively. "We cannot expect to remain competitive on the world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted.

Mr. Bush was informed by email this morning of his termination. Preparations for the job move have been underway for sometime. Gurvinder Singh of Indus Teleservices, Mumbai, India, will be assuming the office of President as of March 22, 2006.

Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara Falls, thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of $320 (USD) a month but with no health coverage or other benefits. It is believed that Mr. Singh will be able to handle his job responsibilities without a support staff. Due to the time difference between the US and India, he will be working primarily at night, when few offices of the US Government will be open. "Working nights will allow me to keep my day job at the American Express call center, "stated Mr. Singh in an exclusive interview. "I am excited about this position. I always hoped I would be President someday."

A Congressional spokesperson noted that while Mr. Singh may not be fully aware of all the issues involved in the office of President, this should not be a problem because Bush was not familiar with the issues either. Mr. Singh will rely upon a script tree that will enable him to respond effectively to most topics of concern. Using these canned responses, he can address common concerns without having to understand the underlying issues at all.

We know these scripting tools work," stated the spokesperson. President Bush has used them successfully for years." Mr. Singh may have problems with the Texas drawl, but lately Bush has abandoned the "down home" persona in his effort to appear intelligent and on top of the Katrina situation.

Bush will receive health coverage, expenses, and salary until his final day of employment. Following a two week waiting period, he will be eligible for $240 a week unemployment for 13 weeks. Unfortunately he will not be eligible for Medicaid, as his unemployment benefits will exceed the allowed limit.

Mr. Bush has been provided the out-placement services of Manpower, Inc. to help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition. According to Manpower, Mr. Bush may have difficulties in securing a new position due to limited practical work experience. A Greeter position at Wal-Mart was suggested due to Bush's extensive experience shaking hands and phoney smile.

Another possibility is Bush's re-enlistment in the Texas Air National Guard. His prior records are conspicuously vague but should he choose this option, he would likely be stationed in Waco, TX for a month, before being sent to Iraq, a country he has visited. "I've been there, I know all about Iraq," stated Mr. Bush, who gained invaluable knowledge of the country in a visit to the Baghdad Airport's terminal and gift shop.

Sources in Baghdad and Falluja say Mr. Bush would receive a warm reception from local Iraqis. They have asked to be provided with details of his arrival so that they might arrange an appropriate welcome.