Canada to Patagonia at a Worrying Age

Back to the Seattle Rant (9th November)
As usual, Kurt Vonnegut proposes a far simpler solution to my goings on when I landed in America. He suggests two new amendments to the American Constitution.

· Every newborn shall be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity.
· Every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do, at a living wage.

Mr Vonnegut is a true hero of mine – there aren’t many. I’ve been reading Timequake on the boat and recommend any reader of this electronic page to go out and buy or borrow this book. You could read all of his stuff and profit massively. I’ve been saving this book for this journey, as I don’t think there’s anything left of his I haven’t read. It will be left on the CP Prospect for future passengers to enjoy with a link to this blog. However, I’m afraid that unlike the printed word, cyberspatial encodings such as this will simply not survive the first big timequake…

Didn’t really sleep that well as didn’t want to miss the Golden Great Bridge departure. As predicted it was still dark by the time we left the bay. However, this meant that the views of the Bay Bridge and, particularly, Alcatraz all lit up were fantastic. Impossible to take a decent pic of the latter, by the way, so that one’s just for me. A version of the GGB will hopefully appear here – but you’ll all think it’s Anglesey Bridge anyway…
The 5am song was Leaving Today by The Divine Comedy. (Absent Friends is pretty much becoming the album of the trip by the way.)

Breakfast was big and then I went back to bed. As soon as I woke up it was time for lunch. More curry. I may have made a slight mistake being all cool about regular curry…

A little surprise at lunch was the announcement by the captain that all the clocks were to go forward at 1300. This had the side effect of bringing tea forward an hour. This was mitigated a bit by delaying it half an hour to 1830 (really only 1730). Apparently we move another hour on tomorrow. If it carries on like this I’ll just be eating all the time (or worrying about eating).
The good news was the booze situation appears sorted at a very reasonable price. We pay bonded prices, apparently, meaning a crate of Wild Cat (they didn’t get any Peroni) is about $10. A bottle of Gordon’s is cheap as well – so that’s the sundowners sorted (we can only buy every few days, so you have to be organised).

I’ve managed to transfer my phone photos and have now burned a CD for the fairly good quality music centre in my lounge. Currently playing Adios Ayer by Jose Padilla. I’ve been trying to get everyone to realise exactly how gorgeous this track is – download it now and imagine you’re heading south in the Pacific Ocean on a big red crate. That’s what I’m doing.
Weather’s been crap all day, so the hopefully sited deckchair has remained in my cabin. God knows where I’d put it exactly. I suppose where the diesel fumes are least strong…

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