Without the Passengers it's Just a Boat Ride

I have been fighting with myself. I told myself that I wanted to write. I wanted to write about this Fantastic Voyage. Oh, the places we would go! The people we would meet! The adventures we would share through words, deeds, and photos! However, I am disappointed with where I am and what I am doing. We are sitting here and captaining a stationary engine. I have tried to write about what is going on while we wait, yet again, in Belfast for our ship to literally sail. It has been a series of starts and stops, which now measure nearly three months since we were to leave on our 3-1/2-year voyage around the world.

Three weeks ago, we were told to return to Belfast to depart one week later. We arrived two days before the planned departure date, as we had done the first time we came here 2-1/2 months ago, only to be told to extend our hotel stay again and again. I tried to inject fun into the time I was being forced to spend in a place that had become too familiar to me and much more so to others who had spent the entire three months or more waiting and waiting to get started. We took a tour to a nice sheep farm where the owner/shepherd gave demonstrations on the skills of his dogs and told stories in a way that only an Irish storyteller could. But sheep farms can only to go so far. I tried to make these sojourns the focus of what I was doing, but they rang hollow as I put down the words on paper (digitally, of course). I worried a bit that my plan to tell stories was waning. That would really suck since it was what I planned to do for a very long time.

I was here to meet my fellow travelers. I was here to get going. The wanderlust that had infected all of us was raging as we were finally given permission to board the ship that had been promised as our home for the first such great getaway for kind of regular people. After sitting down with Steve, I realized that this was the story that I wanted to tell. This was the story that I wanted to be a part of.

The owners have opted to ply us with liquor during our delay, and I was willing to accept their bribe. At the front of the ship was the Morning Light Lounge where I knew I could find a beverage and possibly one for Dusty as well. While the aft has a snazzy Filipino band worthy of The Wedding Singer, with a mixture of 70s to contemporary, I think, hits to enjoy a libation or to even cut a rug, which Dusty and I both did. 

As I entered the Morning Light lounge this day, I could see Steve from Australia sitting on one of the large couches near the bar. We had been witness to a disagreement the day before that had me concerned about the harmony among the venturers on the ship. He was managing the balancing trick of holding a cell phone in one hand while drinking wine from a glass in the other. Steve is a stout man with a few miles on him and clearly a few left to go. The barrel-chested man, "born on the wrong side of the tracks in Wagga Wagga," could have been a department store Santa Claus or a bouncer in a previous life. Next to him was the cane that I had seen him with the other day. Long, dark wood, and straight as an arrow, with a bent handle that turned at the tip like an eagle’s beak. Surely it would help in going up and down stairs, but in the right hands, it would be equally handy in a back alley in Lagos, Nigeria.

He recognized me from the previous day and invited me to sit down.  I joined him and said that I wanted to see if there was a way to calm the waters after the harsh reception he had received the day before.  He said it was nothing, but it obviously made an impression because he said it was something he would just avoid in the future.  He softened up a bit in his tone and his word play and my sense of humor seemed well suited for each other.  

While exchanging personal histories, he mentioned that his family wished he would write his memoirs someday. As he delved into his past experiences, I could see why. He was a man of numbers, an accountant, but also had a Santa Claus-like side to him. He shared stories of having a contract taken out on him in Kota Kinabalu, being shot at, kidnapped, jailed, and even eventually deported from a country—not everyone can say that! He also had a bouncier side to him, and it seemed like he wasn't finished with his adventures yet. He mentioned his interest in starting a group on the ship where we would identify, obtain, and sample local hooch while learning about different cultures through alcohol— a worthy intercultural endeavor if ever there was one. I recalled how Laura Lee had introduced us to the Belfast Martini during a similar exploration of the local scene.

Equal parts Boatyard Irish Vodka and White Vermouth with lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice. 

At least that is how I remember it.  Funny how you would swear you tasted banana, but that is some of the fun of a new adventure in drink and food.

We talked about his time in Hong Kong forty years ago, as well as his time in Luanda and the Congo River in Angola, where he had been the treasurer working on the largest engineering projects in Africa at the time, including the Soyo Gas Plant. Yes, he had been listed as persona non grata there, or maybe it was another country he was kicked out of. He mentioned that on the way to the airport to be expelled, the driver actually tried to extort a payment from him. Steve said that there are some swear words that transcend languages when declining a demand for money. I have much to learn from this man who has managed to stay one step ahead of the jailer man.

Yes. This man had stories that I wanted to hear over a strange drink in some far-off land. And many of my fellow passengers had shown glimpses into their decades of experiences and good fortune that had landed them, as they had me, on the Odyssey.

And with their permission, I would love to write them down and share them with you. Without their permission, I will just write them down for my own memories in my dotage.

Let’s raise a toast to the adventurers who don’t care who gets to hear the stories they tell. Be they true or magnificent fabrications, I will never know nor tell if I did.