IT'S TIME TO START PLANNING THE NEXT

ADVENTURE.

DAVID T. SL ICK

I am getting ready for a March 28 to April 7, 2013 trip to GUYANA.  We will be fishing for peacock bass, for pyara, Arawana, pacu, but most importantly for Arapaima.This trip is sponsored by Costa del Mar sunglasses. The main purpose is to develop a sustainable fishery and also a tourism economy for this very remote area.We will fly to Georgetown, Guyana. There I will be picked up by Dennis, a local

GEORGETOWN GUYANA TO THE REWA RIVER:FISHING FOR ARAPAIMA

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March 29, 2013 to April 7, 2013

tour coordinator, and delivered to a hotel for the night. Then we will fly to a jungle airstrip. From there we will take a four hour boat ride to arrive at the jungle lodge where we will be staying for the week.

The main reason for this trip is to fish for the Arapaima, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. We will fish with 12 weight fly rods. the large flies will be tied by the natives in the jungle settlement where we will be staying.I think this will be a very exciting trip. Not only will it add a few new speciesto our growing list, but it will add another  country to the number of South American countries that we have already visited.South America is such a pleasant place to visit. There are still a fewareas of concern, but for the most part the countries are very peacefuland the locals are friendly. They are truly glad that you are visiting andwant to show you the beauty of there country.

Friday March 29, 2013Five AM came quickly on the 29th of March. After a fitful sleep, excited about this trip, I did a quick 5K and was finished with my shower and news paper  and ready for breakfast. I had completed packing the night before so allwas ready. Toni was nervous but supportive. By 8Am it was time to head forOrlando airport. The normal one hour twenty minute drive took longer dueto traffic, but there was still a good time buffer before the flightwould leave for MIA. I was able to check my bag through to Georgetowneven though it was an airline change. The ticket agent did tell me to checkwith the gate agent at Caribbean Airlines just to make sure. I had an hour to read before the flight departed for MIA. We are off on time without any issuesand arrive in MIA with over two hours before the flight to GEO.I checked in with Caribbean Air and asked about the chances of the my luggage making the flight. When she heard that it was American delivering the bag, she was not sure it would make it. But shortly Before our flight departed she came to the gate area to tell me that my luggage had arrived and would be on our flight. What a nice gesture.

The flight to Georgetown was spectacular. The skies were clear and our routetook us right down the Bahamian island chain. We flew directly over Stafford Creek with a great view of the whole west side. From there we were just east of the Exumas. I

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took some good photos of Staniel Creek and Georgetown and also Crooked Island. All of this from 37,000 feet! The pictures of Pittstown point and Atwood harbor are great.  The rest of the flight consisted of looking out of the window until the sun set.

We had a lay over in Port of Spain Trinidad for fuel and more passengers.Our last leg of the flight went quickly, and after customs and immigration,I picked up my bag and met my contact, Dennis. He is a local tour guide ofPortuguese descent, and his family has been in Guyana for centuries.He also is has a part in the promo movie about the Rewa Lodge. It is anhour drive to our hotel. I learned a lot about Guyana. Dennis does love totalk. I made a quick call to Toni after check in, and then headed to my roomfor a quick sleep. I'll be getting up at 4:45am!

Saturday March 30At 4:45AM the I-phone, alarm clock and the roosters all went off in asynchronized symphony that said it is time. By the time I finished my shower and got to the lobby, Dennis was there to deliver me to Ogle, theirdomestic service airport. We checked in early to make sure all of the luggagewould make the trip. There are times when the plane is overloaded andsome of the bags are set aside for another trip. But Dennis made sure thatall of my stuff made the flight. He also made it possible for me to sit rightseat.  After getting weighed and paying $10,000 GD (Guyana dollars)forthe luggage overweight charges, we went across the street to Jerry's Runway for a quick breakfast. We both ordered salt fish and bake.This is a favorite local meal consisting of shredded salted fish on a fried bun. Breakfast cost $1,400GD. In US dollars, $7.The US dollar is worth $200GDs. It was interesting paying $200 for abottle of water!Dennis and I walked back to the terminal to clear immigration. We said our goodbyes, and will meet again on the 6th. The plane, a very nice CessnaCaravan arrived a few minutes later, and I watched as they loaded all ofthe luggage, including mine. This is the last critical point to make sure thateverything I will need for the week will be with me. After all of the passengerswere loaded, they took me out to get in the co-pilots seat. As it turns out,The pilot is an ERAU grad. He has been flying since 1966, 47 years.We had a good discussion about flying the Caravan. The one we were in

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came from Africa 3 months ago. The ferry pilot flew directly from Africato Ogle airport. He said it was 12 hours of overseas flying! The flight todaywas fairly uneventful with clear weather and a tailwind. The first stop wasat Annai. There were only two passengers getting off, the rest were goingon to Lethem, on the Brazilian border. The pilot's helper unloaded our luggageand made sure that we individually confirmed that all of our luggage was there.Today's travels are now half over. Here we meet George who will take us toThe river landing. He told me that it is about two miles to the river and weshould be there in less than a half hour. Fifteen minute miles is a good walking speed, but with these roads that was all we could do. That was with a shortcut that is fifteen feet under  water in the rainy season! But we did make it, and met Rovin Alin, my guide for the week, and Patrick the boat captain. TheBoat is a 25 foot aluminum fishing boat, but this is a treacherous river andrequires an experienced captain. The ride to Rewa River Eco- Lodge is awonderful experience. Rovin named all of the many birds that we saw, andalso pointed out the huge black caimans and the giant otters as we passed them. The ride was a couple of hours long even though I had been told toexpect four. Roven explained that they borrowed a 40 HP motor fromThe Rewa community instead of the lodges 15 HP units, and that was why the trip was shorter.  By the time we arrived and I got settled in my room, it was time for lunch. I finally got to meet Matt Breuer, the onsite manager associated with Oliver White and Costa del Mar. Matt will be with Rovin, and me all week.  Immediately after a big lunch of chicken, fish, rice, and vegetables it was time to go fishing. This will be my first look at the arapaima in its natural setting.We go by river boat to a landing on the river and then walk for 20 minutesthrough the jungle to an inland pond called Brandish. Here we will use a nativedugout canoe to fish. This is a very intriguing experience. We fish untilafter dark and then trek back out of the woods in the dark.Tonight I learned to play dominoes before dinner. We washed it down with a couple of Banks beer, locally made in Georgetown from their brewery onThirst Lane! A good vegetarian dinner and to bed. Tomorrow starts withbreakfast at 5:15 AM.

Sunday March 31, 2013 It's 5 AM Easter Sunday. all of thee jungle birds and animals are waking up

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with a cacophony of noises. The howler monkeys are especially noisy. It sounds as though there is an entire troop of them, but Rovin says it is justone male and a female. I think they have a loud speaker! today we will fishGrass pond. After a good breakfast of fried eggs and "bake" , the fried bread, we head up river. The landing is the same as yesterday, but we'll walknearly half an hour back into the jungle to the pond. The dugout is waiting for us. These canoes are built on site. The local people fell a tree close to the lakeand then use an adze to form the canoe. It's quite a process that takesseveral weeks. The workers stay at the site until the canoe is completed.The finished canoe is very stable and will hold the three of us comfortably.They last from seven to eight years, and then they make another one.Captain Patrick will take another dugout and help scout for the arapaima.We fished hard in the morning, and saw many fish, and a couple of giantOtters. The bird life is spectacular. We fished until noon, and spotted many arapaima rolling but did not hook up any. We are fishing with a special flythat Matt tied, that looks like a small peacock bass. It is not aero dynamic,and throws like a wet dish rag. We headed back to the lodge for lunch andsome down time. At 2:30 Rovin wakes me up and we head back to GrassPond. The afternoon session is more productive with 7 peacock bass andan arowana. We kept four of the bass for food. Peggy, the cook, hasn'tbeen  happy with our lack of productivity, but today she was smiling.With our fish and the bunch that Patrick caught, we will be eating fish allweek. We fished until after dark and had to use our head lamps for the long walk back to the boat. After another round of dominos and a quick dinner it was time for bed.  Tomorrow will start at 5:30.

Monday, April 1, 2013Today we are going up river to a new pond, Comeka. This is quite a project.Five of the camp staff left at 4AM to haul a boat, to the pond.They will run up the river for almost 2 hours, and then slide the boat for a mileback to the pond. They also set up a couple of hammocks for Matt and me.Then they will wait all day until we return, and then haul the boat back to the river and come back to the lodge after dark. We leave the lodge before6AM, with another boat ( and the 40 HP motor).

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By the time we arrive the boat is positioned and we are ready to fish after another long walk back through the jungle. We started out today trying some of the popper flies for peacock bass. We caught a couple big ones for lunch,and released the rest of them. It was fun to get some action after a two daydrought. But now back to arapaima. After many casts I felt able to throwthe big fly, and finally got a strike. It was as though I had snagged a log!The excitement didn't last very long but I'm one small step closer to thegoal. Rovin cooked our peacocks over a fire. We got a little hammock timeand we're back fishing by 1:30. After many more arapaima sightings and casts, we decided to get some more peacocks for Rovin and Patrick.By five o'clock we were ready to head back to the lodge. The long boat ride at sunset and into dark made a great ending for the day. A shower and a quick dinner and it is time for bed. Still no captures.

Tuesday April 2, 2013Rovin had to call me 4 times this morning. Five O'clock  seems to be gettingearlier everyday. After a good breakfast of pancakes, eggs and a localsaugage that looked a lot like hot dog, we were ready for another day ofchasing Arapaima. Today we will go back to grass pond, and return forlunch and a siesta. No messing around with peacocks and arowana today.We are going to focus on Arapaima.   It was still very early, but light enoughto see the fish roll. The birds were alive and there were six giant otters thatwere offended that we were in their pond. There was also a huge blackCaiman watching our every move. But our focus was on arapaima. We driftedtowards the north on the pond and had a chance to cast to several rollingFish, but l didn't have any luck until Rovin heard the BIRD GLAD.  This is theGood luck bird with a happy uplifting song. Shortly afterward I got a goodstrong strike but did not get a hook up. After several more attempts, Ifinally  got the fly in the right place at the right time. When I felt the line go taught it was such a strong pull that I thought I hooked a tree. But the treewas coming towards us. With simultaneous contradictory instructionsfrom Matt and Rovin, I tried to pull the fish out of the Lilly pads and intoopen water. This was a powerful fish. Shortly he jumped and we could see hisimmense size. This was the biggest and most powerful fish that I've everfought! As he was jumping he turned towards us and we could see hisGiant bucket mouth, and his flared gills. On his second jump the 80LB

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LEADER SNAPPED AND THE FIGHT WAS OVER ! There was silencein the boat, but no unhappiness nor regret.   We had just experienced apowerful connection with a true marine dinosaur. We just sat quietly fora few minutes and then I examined the end of the leader. It looked like it wascut with a knife. Earlier in the morning I had noticed a small mark on theleader close to the connection to the fly line. It was in the same locationwhere the leader had parted. Matt thinks that a piranha had bit the line.A lesson learned. When fishing for such large fish, everything has to be perfect. Matt estimated that the fish was greater Ithan 200 LBS. We fished for several others but our minds were still recalling the one that got away. By noon it was time to Head up river to the lodge for lunch and a well deserved nap. While we are waiting, I'm charging my I-Padthrough the lodge's solar panel generator. This is where the beginning of civilization and high technology meet. They are running most off this lodgeoff of a five panel set up. If they had ten panels, Matt doesn'think they wouldever need a generator.  Back on grass pond for the afternoon, but it is anticlimactic after this morning. We chased several fish but didn't have a strike. We will go home and regroup for tomorrow.

Wednesday April 3, 2013It's a 5:30 breakfast again. Today we are going to Macatelli pond. We will be the first ones fishing this pond. Everyone is excited because the trail to the pond was just cut yesterday, and it hasn't been fished yet. It is a half hour boat ride on the Rewa River and then a  40 minute walk through the jungle to reach the pond. We are staying all day, so our siesta hammocks will be set up and ready. We head north on the pond and within fifteen minutes we have a strike.This is a prelude of things to come. After several more strikes and arapaimarolling at all quadrants, we finally get another fish hooked, and it is huge!The fish is so heavy that when it strikes, I'm convinced that I've hooked a log.But then this monster jumps. I just hope that we can keep this one frombreaking the leader. With Matt and Rovin giving me simultaneous instructionswe fight the fish until it looks like he is tired. But Rovin knows that we aren'tanywhere near the end of this battle. As the arapaima nears the boat Rovinpokes him with his paddle and the fish roars to life and takes another long and powerful run. This process, bring him to the boat, poke him and watch him runlasts for several more minutes until the fish is tired enough for Rovin to

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jump in the water with him. As he subdues the monster I don't hesitate whenMatt tells me to jump in. Now this is a muck bottom swamp with thousandsof piranha and a few huge caiman, not to mention electric eels, sting rays, and many more creatures  big and small that can cause you harm or at least severe discomfort, but I still jump in. The fish, according to guide estimates is wellover 300 Lbs. Matt, Rovin and I are not able to lift it totally out of the waterfor pictures, but our captain, Patrick does a very good job of capturingthis fantastic moment. Now we have accomplished what we came to do. Afterfive days of trying we are in the water holding the river monster by his jawas Rovin removes the fly and starts the revival process. We are all excitedbut a little numb, but its only ten, so lets keep fishing. But lightning doesstrike twice. In five minutes we are hooked up to another huge fish. We fight it as long as the first one and the process is similar, and after another long fight and resuscitation, we are all ready for lunch and a siesta. Our normal afternoon break is two hours, but today we sleep a extra hour and a half dreaming of River monsters.The afternoon is anticlimactic and by five, we are ready to head back to camp. The long hot walk and equally long boat ride don't seem to dampen our tired spirits at all. The photos and videos receive an awestruck audience at the lodge. Just like the old man in the sea. Now time for dinner and to bed. Tomorrow is another new pond.

Thursday April 4, 2013Same drill today: up at five, a quick breakfast and to the boat. This newlydiscovered pond is up river on the Rupanuni. It is a long river run, but amerciful short five minute walk through the jungle. This is a large pondand looked very productive. Given the number of fish that were rolling.We had about four good solid strikes, but no captures in the morning.The weather is hotter than normal today, but we had a good lunch ofarowana and rice. That, and a long nap and we were ready to fish again.But the afternoon was just as unproductive as the morning right up untilwe got back to the take out spot. That's when the Tank hit! He was a verybig fish and we worked it as if it was our last chance of the the day. Whichit was. But now we went home with another notch on our fly rod. The ridehome was wet and windy with the heaviest rain of the week.  We returned tired from the effort and the heat. But not too tired for a coupleof games of dominoes before dinner. There is a mixture of people tonight.Luke, a guide from Georgetown, and a great domino player, brought three

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people- a couple from Montana, Kate and Chip Napoli, and their nephewKevin from New York City. Kate and Kevin are here for the animals. ChipIs a birder. Coincidentally Chip's father was a professor of communicationsat KSU when Toni was in school. Six degrees of separation. There wasalso a couple of Swedes, who live in São Paulo. They were into insects.They were thrilled to have photographed a pink footed tarantula today.No additional comment needed here. Heinrich, one of the Swedes isfinishing up a goal, and will have visited 100 countries this coming week end when they get to Suriname. We had a good dinner and lots of conversationbut now it's time for bed. Tomorrow we will head back to Macatelli pond.That was our best experience so far. It will be interesting to see if thefishing is as spectacular as Wednesday when we had 13 strikes andcaught two arapaima.

Friday APRIL 5, 2013Today will be our last day of fishing, and will either be very good or a bustdepending on whether the fish can take the pressure of nearly back toback fishing days. The boat ride is forty minutes to the connection point,and then an equal distance back to the pond. It is cloudy and there was some discussion as to whether the rainy season may be starting earlier than usual.We had intermittent rain and a lot of casts to rolling fish without a strike.We finally stopped for lunch but even then the weather threatened. But weate quickly and made a strategic error by putting up the hammocks. Weall wanted to return to fishing, hoping to salvage this last day. We hooked andcaught a very large fish ,and then it started to rain again heavily. The ideaabout putting up the hammocks now looked like a mistake. We went back to the landing anyway to wait out the storm. After an hour of continuous rain,it didn't look like we would be able to finish the day, but it was getting lighterout. I looked out to the pond and realized that it had stopped raining but inforest it would continue raining for some time due to the foliage. So it madesense to go fishing. And that was a good decision because we quicklycaught another fish. But that evidently inflamed the sky gods because itstarted raining again. It was Matt's turn to try one of these monsters andwithin a short period of time he was hooked up. He wants everyone to knowthat it only took three casts. There is competition amongst fishermen !Matt did a very good job of finessing the fish as I took over duties as

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cameraman. After several spectacular jumps the fish was by the boat,and Matt and Rovin went through the drill of resuscitating another bigfish. Now Matt told me that we were tied at five fish apiece. As I mentionedfishermen are competitive, so it was my turn again. I felt a little piggish,but still wanted number three for the day. It took longer that expectedand even after breaking off a well hooked fish, we kept on trying. When wefinally got number three to the boat, everyone was relieved that wecould now go home. We headed for the put in point, and packed up thenow very heavy rain drenched hammocks for the long trek out of thejungle to the boat for the last time. Total count for today, thirteen Strikes,and four Arapaima caught and successfully resuscitated and released. The macaws, king fishers and even the howler monkeys gave us a rousing sendoff. But we were going home the Rewa Eco-Lodge happy and tired. I spentan hour getting all of my gear packed up and settling up with Matt  on tips. After a long and enjoyable shower of slightly chilly river water, I felt ready to go home.We enjoyed a rousing round of dominoes with Matt, Tory and Martin,a newcomer from Vancouver Island. Then a final dinner and to bedtired but smiling. This has been an unforgettable week. But now startsthe long trek home.

Saturday, April 6, 2013The alarm on the IPad goes off at 4:30AM. after determining that I'mStill in Rewa but mercifully packed up, I shower and dress and do the lastinventory of the hut. Then lug all of my worldly possessions over to breakfast.Emily, a young volunteer from Perth, Australia will be accompanying usas far as Annai, the closest airport. It is still two hours by boat to thesand bar that is two miles from the airport. We leave Rewa at 5:30and have a long but enjoy able river cruise with Patrick and Rovin. Thewater is much lower than when we arrived a week ago so the transit isslower and more dangerous. One misplaced log and we would be floatingon the river without a lower unit. Or even worse capsized and waitingfor the piranhas to show up, or the black caimans. But we made the tripsuccessfully and waited for our ride to the airport at Rock view. As I mentioned on the way in, the airport is only two miles away but it is a thirty minute trip.The 10:30 flight will now be here at 11:30, so I have some time to readand catch up with this log. But the flight is on time with the new schedule,

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and we can begin one additional leg of this journey. The pilot has been flyingfor some time, and confirmed that this is the same plane that we flewon a week ago. He also told me that the pilot, Jerry Gonzalez, is alsothe general manager of the airline. Small company people all have to wearmany hats. I met a very old and distinguished lady, 85 year old DianeMcTurk. She was born in Guyana when it was still an English colony,and her father is the founder of Karanambu  Lodge and reserve in the south. She is heading to Trinidad for some medical care and to receive an award from a Caribbean Tourism group. She is a strong promoter of ecotourism in Guyana.Dennis, the driver called her Auntie Di. He spoke of her with reverence.She questioned me about the arapaima fishing in Rewa, and was happyto hear that the resuscitation practices are effective. She has a programat her resort to determine the survivability of the arapaima after release.Dennis and I went shopping for some souvenirs and some ice cream.Now it's time to get ready for tomorrow's final legs from Georgetownto Miami and then home.Dinner at the Bottle, the hotel dining room  was very good. Tulsie, the only waiter seated me next to a young man from Boise, Idaho. Josh Gerard isan engineer working on a hydroelectric plant that will generate 145 KWfor the country. They currently use 100KW, most of which is produced bydiesel generators. The company, Sithe is based in NYC and contracts withcountries  for energy development. They own all of the capital equipmentand the revenue for 20 years, and then turn the whole project over to thecountry. Sounds like a win/win situation for Guyana. The capital investment,$750,000,000.

Sunday April 7, 2013The alarm knocks me out of a sound sleep at TWO AM. Dennis will be hereAt 2:30 to deliver me to the international airport, an hour drive fromGeorgetown. Dennis likes to talk and I listen...all the way to the airport.He tells me about the drinking laws in Guyana, and that its three strikesand you lose your license. This is not good for taxi drivers. He also toldme about the huge sand trucks that deliver Guyana white sand to the docksfor shipment to Barbados and the other islands for their beaches. Hard tobelieve but those beautiful Caribbean beaches came from sand pits inGuyana.  We check luggage with the other sleep walkers and get through

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security, after paying a $21. departure tax. The sign read, departure tax$4,000. That was a shock until I realized the conversion from GD to USdollars. We now have a couple of hours before departure to read or sleep.I do both. In Trinidad and Tobago , we all exit the plane with our luggage andgo back through a security check. Maybe they don't trust the Guyanese?We wait for an hour and then re-board the plane for Miami.We land in Miami on time. But the views of the Bahamas were great.  I tookmany photos of fishing locations from past trips there.

This was truly a trip of a lifetime. When fishing for such a rare and elusivefish as the arapaima, even one is a gift. But we experienced over thirty strikes and landed seven fish from eighty to three hundred pounds on a twelve weight fly rod.We also caught several other species including peacock bass and arowana, along with some smaller species. The bird life was spectacular with macaws,five types of kingfishers and many many other species. And the animallife  life was equally incredible , from the very noisy howler monkeys andtapirs to giant otters and ant eaters. The insects are the most visibleand plentiful.

Now it's time to start planning the next adventure.

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David Perryman, John Upchurch, Terry White, Steve Seibert, Ike Johnston,Larry Watson, Pete Heebner, David Slick, and Andrew Perryman

This is an annual trip to the southern end of The Bahamas on the mothershipThe Sea Hunter. We have been chartering one or another iterations of this ship since the late eighties. This Sea Hunter is the third vessel with thesame name and ownership.  And the same basic charter, to fish and dive

THE SEA HUNTER MOTHERSHIP AT CROOKED ISLAND, AND THE ACKLINS, THE BAHAMAS

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June 8-15, 2013

in all of the out islands of The lower Bahamas. There has already been a lot of preparation for this trip. David Perryman is the trip organizer and makes all of the arrangements with Pete Pulitzer,the ship's owner, and with Captain Mike. Mike is a terrific seaman and hasbeen with us for several of these trips. So the ship is stocked and waiting for us

on anchor off of Landrail Point near Pittstown Point. This is on the northwest corner of Crooked Island in the lower Bahamas.

We will leave at seven on Saturday morning June eighth in our magic carpet, N27888, a Piper Navajo Chieftain. Our first stop, 321 NM from Ormond Beach, will be at Nassau the capital of The Bahamas.

Here we will clear customs and immigration and refuel, before our nextleg to Pittstown Point on Crooked Island, 220 NM further southeast. Total

distance 541 nautical miles.

Saturday June 8, 2013At six AM I picked up John and Larry. The first joke of the day was thegolf bag sitting with Larry's luggage. I hope he brought a lot of water balls. We made a quick stop for coffee and a couple of bags of donuts for customs and

immigration in Nassau, and we are heading for the plane. The first glitchwas a broken gate. It just wouldn't accept our pass card. So we found anotheropen gate near the Sunrise FBO and headed for the plane.  Bob didn't get infrom his Birmingham trip until late, so triple eight was still on the Tarmac. So the loading began as soon as I finished the pre-flight check. And what a jobthat was. With all of our luggage and several cases of wine and all of the spareboat parts and a propeller for one of the skiffs, we were going to be heavy leaving

Ormond. But fortunately we had a headwind and runway eight, the longest runway and made it safely into the morning sky. With a beautiful sunrise to our east we headed southeast to Nassau, direct. In less than two

hours we were on final approach to runway one four and shortly on the groundand heading for Odyssey FBO to clear customs and get some additional fuel. Here is where the donuts come in handy. The usual drill is to remove ALL

luggage from the plane and drag it all in for inspection. But with the donutdiversion we manage to slip in with a few small bags and clear easily. Sometimea little sugar goes a long way. Now for our last leg of the day, on to Crooked Island and the runway at Pittstown Point. The runway was extended a fewyears ago to thirty-five hundred feet,  so we can now use it instead of going

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all the way to the main airport of Colonel Hill further south. This saves about an hour of travel  time to Landrail Point where we will meet the Sea Hunter. Our old friend Andy Gibson, AKA captain retail plus, meets us in his bus for the two mile trip to the boat. We now have a hangar option here and prudently decide to spring for this option. With the strong winds and rain this week it is a very welcome option. So into the hangar I " fly" the plane, and unload our bus load of luggage.

The trip to the dock at Landrail is a short five minute trip, and Coco one of thecrew is there to meet us. After paying Andy $200 for the trip, which he informed

us included Andrew, Ike, and Steve's charges from the Colonel Hillairport also , we started the last stashing of all of our luggage and miscellaneous

paraphernalia onto the skiff for the short trip to the Sea Hunter anchorage. Once were are all aboard and organized in our below deck " suites", it's time for a quick lunch and then the first trolling session of the week. We are onlytwenty minutes from our floating hotel, aboard the sport fisherman Sweet Jessie,

when we got our first massive marlin strike.  It's Larry's turn in the hotseat, and after an excruciating half hour or so of simultaneous contradictoryinstructions by the whole crew of experts, the fish, estimated at over three

hundred pounds, is brought to the boat for photos and a quick release. Larryis now a marlin catching something or other and will be taking a swim when wewe return to the Sea Hunter tonight.  As usual the weight of the fish will be a matter of great discussion for the balance of the week, and the weight will varywildly, but the fish will mostly gain weight. After several more hours of trolling and some success with  barracuda and

football sized black fin tuna, it is time for our triumphant return to our floatinghome away from home. I think it is Rum Thirty! Some of us fished off the stern

of the S/H catching giant jacks, and miscellaneous bottom dwellers, while others enjoyed a sunset drink in the shade on the forward deck.  After a good

dinner and maybe another drink- and more discussions on the size of Larry'smarlin, it was time for bed. Sunday June 9th, 2013We were hoping to get the other skiff back today, but that looks like it will not be.

So  Captain Mike borrowed Shaky McKinney's skiff for the week. We are off on another trolling adventure while the Sea Hunter heads. South to our next anchorage near French Wells. If the wind dies down,this will be a good area for bone fishing. But the winds don't die, so plan B is to go bone fishing anyway. We load up the two skiffs with three anglers in each and head due East to the cut between Crooked Island and

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The Acklins. Pete and I fished this area many years ago, but today we will have to contend with a lot of wind. It's

blowing strong, twenty-five knots or more out of the southeast. There will be very little chance to find a leeward spot but we'll keep looking. We keep walking north from where we leave the skiffs, thinking we will fish the incoming tide,

only to discover that the tide is running out. We do see some fish, but they are moving out with the tide and are very skittish. So after an hour or so of looking,

we head back to the skiff to check on them. Oops, they are going to need a push! There was some productivity back there as Pete did manage to catch

a couple of bone fish. Now for the long bumpy ride back to the boat. We thinkWe may find another flat closer to the mother ship, but by the time we have

bounced around for an hour and a half, we are ready for a more stable platform and some lunch on the Sea Hunter. On the ride back, we spooked a small school of squid. One of them flew right passed Johns head and another landed inside the skiff. It will make great bait tonight. We did another troll in the afternoon but it wasn't productive. So back to fishing off the stern of the big boat. Andrew and Coco, and some of the other crew members did get in a dive

so we will have grouper for dinner.  As usual it's Rum Thirty again, and time forsome hor'sdouevres. I know the spelling is wrong but I'm not wasting any more

time on it. I'm doing this log from memory, so I'm a little unsure about the rest of Sunday. I do believe we had another great meal and some talk time on the bow. Maybe you all can help my memory. Monday June 10, 2013Today will be a lot of trolling as we head down to Castle Rock for tonight. The Big boat will steam on down, but we will be on the Sweet Jessie as we troll toMira Por Vos. This pile of rocks west of the light house at Mira Por Vos, whichloosely translated means look out for them! Meaning this large seamountwith very little of the rocks above sea level or visible. The passage betweenthe Castle Rock  light house and the rocks is a very rough area with strong

currents and tides, so we were tossed around quite a bit as we trolled the area. We saw many birds, and picked up some barracuda and some more black fin.

John caught a very large yellow fin tuna, and we also landed a twenty lb. wahoo before finally heading back to the Sea Hunter for dinner and a rest.

We'll have lots of sashimi and poke tuna tonight! we are all tired from an all dayfishing journey, but still hungry. So Mike cooked up a spectacular dinner tonight.

 We fished off of the stern of the Sea Hunter tonight for sharks and

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bottom fish. The sharks were very big and each one I hooked headed for the drop off less than one hundred feet behind the boat. With each one they took a

souvenir. They took my $10.00 480lb. Cable rigs with them. But we finally landed one after he ate a whole jack that I had hooked and got the hook caught in the corner of his mouth as he ate it.

It was on twenty lb. test line with no leader. Go figure! We also caught a bunch of yellow tail snapper off the boat that will make a great lunch one of these days.

Tuesday June 11,2013Today we will try some bone fishing in a bay near our anchorage. The tide looks

perfect, just starting to come in. We walked these flats for over an hour on the new incoming tide, but saw few fish. Pete did find a small school, and was fortunate to get two Bone fish to bite. But for the most part, the flat was bare even though there were many worm mounds that they could have fed upon. We did see several sharks, but few bones. As we headed back to the skiffs we stumbled upon a very skittish school of bone fish. After several attempts to

entice them to eat an assembly of chicken feathers, they exited the area at a high rate of speed. The wind is still blowing strong, so we'll head back to themother ship for lunch. I think we'll dive this afternoon. We had a very good dive. Andrew, Coco, Web, Mike, and I dove near our anchorage. The dive started in

fifty feet and we went as deep as seventy five feet. Andrew shot a very nice grouper and as they tried to get the spear out and attach him to the lift bag a

large shark showed up looking for dinner. Several of us fended him off with our spears until they could get the fish hooked up and headed to the surface. We got two or three other grouper so we will have some piscatorial variety tonight.

Same drill tonight great sashimi and tuna poke washed down  with a couple of rum drinks as we watched the sunset off the stern of the Sea Hunter. Another

very good day. We also dove for conch today and found fifteen to add to our increasingly varied diet. Wednesday June 12, 2013Today we will take another run to Mira Por Vos as the big boat heads back toa position near goat island. We will troll behind them and meet up late this

afternoon at our new anchorage. The trolling wasn't very productive, but westill had a good time. This afternoon will be dedicated to some bone fishing for

the hardy, and a siesta for the rest. Thursday June 13,2012

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Thursday is a complete blur, so I will need help from my fellow anglers to fill in the details. I also may have mixed up Wednesday and Thursdays activities.

So help me get this right. Friday June 14,2013Today will be an early rise for most of the crew. The Sweet Jessie will be heading

for Diana Bank for early morning trolling. The 4:45am alarm got most of the anglers and crew going, but a couple of slackers, both named David, slept in. As it turned out, the slackers missed a fantastic trip with a boat load of yellow fin tuna and also two big dolphin fish captured. A total of over one hundred and fifty pounds of fish landed. They also had two marlin strikes and much more activity that will hopefully be filled in by the early risers.

The David's however had a restful morning sleeping, reading and catching yellow tail snapper off the stern of the Sea Hunter. The conquering heroes arrived back late in the afternoon. We all had a rum drink as we watched the crew clean the biggest catch of the week. So tonight will be a time to organize tackle and gear and get our stuff ready for the morning trip back to Nassau

and then home to Ormond Beach with a customs and immigration stop inFort Pierce. Saturday June 15, 2013We are all up early and showered. Mike fixed us our last breakfast as we recalled

what all agreed was a very quick week. By seven thirty all of our duffles, fishing rods and miscellaneous gear was semi organized on the back deck, and the transfer to the dock at Landrail point began. Given all ofthe luggage it would take three trips to get us all to Andy's bus. We made the

quick trip to the hangar and loaded up inside. With all hands helping we pushed triple eight out into the sunshine. With a quick farewell to the crew and Ike andSteve who will be returning  by Bahamas Air, we were ready for another heavydeparture. But we took off with no problems and headed north to Nassau. However there was some question as to whether anyone had been in the hangar

and had possibly drained off some fuel. This was further complicated by a troublesome left fuel gauge. But in cases like this guessing is not a good

strategy, so we headed for Georgetown in the Exumas, the closest place for fuel and piece of mind. As it turned out, the only issue was a faulty fuel gauge. But everyone was in agreement that the prudent stop was worth the few minute

delay. After clearing customs outbound in Nassua and dropping off Web, we headed for Fort Pierce for a very quick and professional clearance

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back into the good  old USA. The trip back to Ormond Beach was short and trouble free. So after a week of fantastic fishing and male bonding, our eleven hundred mile journey has come to a successful end. So we headed for piranhas bar for a welcome home beer.

Now it's time to start planning our next adventure.

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Rotary project with JP Pontier, Matt Elston, Craig Wells, Wes Timko, andGary Russell. Also Command Medical meeting with Carlos Gadea.And a meeting with ANF (The American Nicaraguan Foundation).Another meeting with Arlen Lopez, director of  Aproquen regarding theirCleft lip/palette surgery program and their burn unit.Also, a meeting with Manuel Maruenco of the village of Villa el Carmen

MANAGUA , NICARAGUA

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November 14-24, 2013

This is a very busy ten day trip. After a review meeting with Carlos Gadea regarding the status of new production procedures for several new products,I will be working with several NGOs on potential futureRotary projects.By Wednesday the 20th our Rotarians will arrive, and on Thursday and Friday we will complete what may be the last of the fence projects inVilla el Carmen. Hence, the meetings with the NGOs to help determine futuredirections for our club's international projects.I will also have a wonderful week end with Gabriel, my favorite seven year oldgrandson.  And I will spend some quality time with Andrew and Paulina, ourother favorite Nicaraguan grands. OK, and their mom and dad.

Thursday November 14 2013It will be an early day today. The first flight leaves Orlando at 7:15. Thattranslates into a 4 AM wake up. The flight from Orlando and the next toManagua were on time with no glitches. Ben met me on time and we went directly to Dona Haydies for lunch. We had enough time to catch up on theirupcoming trip to Buenos Aires and all of the recent seminars and meetingshis wife Sheila and he have had on MADs ( apps, for mobile computing devices). Sheila is now the Martha Stewart of APPS in Nicaragua, and has developed a very high profile in a short period of time. More on this later.By two, it is time to pick up the kids at school, and head home. Sheila had awonderful Nicaraguan Dinner waiting for us. After a very long day, it's timefor some rest. I had some precious moments with Andrew and Paulina catching up on their young lives, and on the status of their  tech knowledge beforefinally falling asleep.

Friday November 15,2013 and Saturday 16th and Sunday 17thAnother early rise as we will drop off the kids at school before seven. Ben has been doing this since the kids started to school. We take them to school anddeliver the small ones directly to their classroom. Now, that is only Gabriel,but it gives a small parent teacher minute each day. Great communications.We head for Ben's office for a few organizational and motivational minutesand then head for our first meeting of the day with ANF. This is a well fundedorganization that does much good in the community, including building small homes and furnishing school supplies including furniture for schools in the remote areas of

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Nicaragua, including Villa el Carmen. The meeting went very well and may bear fruit on bigger projects. All in all an excellent first meeting.We zoomed out to Ben's factory for what was to be a few minutes. But whenwe arrived we received a message that our afternoon meeting had been postponed. So I stayed with Ben as he completed some more business tasks and preparations for the week end business start up seminar that Sheila andsome college students had organized.Now it's time to pick up the kids from school, and for Gabriel and I to head out to Montel y Mar for our week end adventure.We dropped Ben, Andrew and Paulina off at the college since they were all going to be participants in the start up week end.Gaby is very excited about being an only child with his DeeDee for a whole week end. He is even more excited bout the Legos spaceship that his NiNisent him, and the prospects of the two of us, without adult supervision, being able to assemble it. He talked about school, and friends, and his big brother and sister, and anything else he could think of. And I listened. He told me about his four wheeler accident when he was four. In detail he described the cuts and bruises and the bandages. His main point of pride was that his cast was bigger than his big brother Andrew had received after a recent similar accident. Finally he said with great emotion, "That was the worst day of my life!" Then he sat quietly for a moment, and said almost to himself, "but this is the best day. "Enough to melt a grandfather's heart.As soon as we got organized in our hotel room, the most important project needed to get under way. We opened the Legos box. To my dismay their were four bags of small unmarked parts and not one, but two volumes of instructions. This looked unfun! With an array of small parts,two encyclopediasize  instruction manuals and a seven year old with a short attention span.My memories of former projects with missing pieces and wandering childrenwith frustrated ambitions, gave way to an impressively focused and capableyoungster. My only direction was to open one bag at a time and start at the beginning. But by then Gabriel had already assembled R2/D2 and was ready for the next page. My assistance was limited to monitoring finished sub assemblies. By breaking the work sessions up with dinner and pool time, we were able to complete the whole assembly in about four hours. Four fun hoursand a completely functional spaceship that was the focus of this seven year old for the rest of the trip. How joyous to lay in bed in the morning for an hour watching a child

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playing with his own creation. The week end consisted of lots of pool time, two sessions of miniature golf- only because the bow and arrows weren't available. Also long beach walks for sea shells, and sea glass and some beautiful sand dollars.  It's hard to imagine a happier time.We returned Sunday afternoon and waited for the start up week enders toreturn. But the sessions were longer than forecast so we opted for Chinese food from the Galleria food court. When the rest of the family returned they had great stories on their projects and how wonderful the week end was.But it was time for bed now. Monday is a school day.One additional story that I forgot. On Sunday morning, Gabriel and I went to find the first school that our Rotary club worked on five or six years ago.The school is called Osnieda. I had tried several times in the past to find the school to no avail. But this time we were persistent. The school is only 5KM off of the main road at KM 46. But the road is so bad that it took us over an hour to find it. All the while Gabriel sat quietly with his spaceship in his lap.The fence is still there, but it looks like the school still has no well. There is so much that still needs to be done.Monday November 18,2013Carlos picked me up at our usual time, six thirty. I will work with him until noon, and then pick up the van after we have lunch. There is a lot of work to do today picking up supplies for Thursday and Friday. Ben and I ordered all of the fence materials, including the sand, gravel and concrete. Alfredo will be in charge of delivering all of the supplies on Wednesday. Logistics are a little different down here.  At three I have a meeting with Arlen Lopez of Aproquen to discuss their new cleft lip/palette program, and if they have any need for Dr. Akers and his group to assist. We also discussed other possible areas where Rotary may be able to help- as long as we will stay in Villa el Carmen. It was a very good meeting and the organization is performing much needed work.After the meeting I met Ben and Sheila and family at Burger King. Our second trip here this week. We are all tired and this qualifies as dinner. So we head for home so Ben and Sheila can pack for their trip to BA.  Tomorrow is another full day.Tuesday November 19,2013Ben and Sheila leave for the airport at five, so I'm in charge of delivering the kids to school. They are very helpful and cooperative as they get breakfast and assemble all of their school supplies. After dropping them off at school,

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I make one final supply run to Synsa, a Lowes wanna be, and then head out to Villa el Carmen. I'll pick up our helper Alfredo at eight at a road stop along the way. Alfredo lives in Diriamba about forty KM from the stop. He gets up before four to walk to a bus stop, and then he takes two different busses to make the connection. He is always there on time! We have a 9:30 meeting with the Alcaldia of VEC to discuss future involvement of Rotary and what direction the village can give us as far as their needs and priorities. It was a good meeting, with Manuel Marienco a former employee of Milagro del Mar and someone that helped us on the first fence project, eight years ago.The meeting was very productive and we will receive a lot of data regarding a water system for one of the poorest areas within a very poor VEC.After the meeting we went to escuela  Zapote to lay out the fence perimeter and mark the placement of the post holes. We followed Carolyn and Martin back towards Milagros del Mar to pick up the the road to Zapote but as happens the road was still not passable even though the dry season started nearly a month ago.  So we had to drive back out to the main hard road,and then go south for twenty KM to come in the other end of the dirt road.  There were trucks working on the road and that was encouraging until we got a few KM from the school only to see that the bridge was out! WithMartin and Carolyn leading we stopped to assess the issue. The solution was to ford the river, but there we two different places before we could get to the other side.  We watched as they bounced and swam their way across. Of course they were in a four wheel drive car with big tires, but since they made it we really had no choice but to follow since we had all of the tools and equipment in our Toyota Hiace twelve passenger van. It was a very  interesting crossing and once we were on the other side, I wasn't sure how we were going to get back. But one issue at a time. We made it to the school, and got the layout complete in less than an hour, so things were looking up. That's normally a sign of things to come. We walked the perimeter with the school principal to make sure he knew what had to be cleared and prepared for Thursday, but with my Spanish and the look on his face I wasn't sure what he understood or committed to. Carolyn decided that there was a better way to go back to the north road, so we followed her through a maze of sugarcane fields and tiny family settlements to another crossing. The entry looked doable but the opposite shore was very steep with very deep ruts. I was skeptical but when they made it through I felt it was necessary to follow. By this time all the young boys had gathered on the bank to watch this spectacle. Carolyn and Martin were on the other bank waiting to film this episode. So there wasn't any way to back out without disappointing all of the

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bystanders. So with a huge amount of confidence and Alfredo as my right hand man, we put the beast in gear and revved up that little engine. We hit the near side of the river with a flurry of   Water and mud. So far so good! We hit the opposite bank, and that four cylinder diesel, five speed was screaming furiously, as we came to a hard and sudden stop! The van had wedged itself half way between the river bank and the top. The right rear wheel was off the ground and the whole van had a serious list to the left. We sat stunned for a few moments trying not to move lest the van continue turning turtle. We finally extricated ourselves and walked up the hill to Carolyn.  She will ride north to find a tractor to pull us out. She can't call anyone because there is no cell coverage. But ten minutes later she called and was stuck again. We are on our own. By now all of the campesinos have gathered and Martin and Alfredo have asked them to push us back down the bank. As I jump judiciously back into the van I wonder if this is a good idea.I also wonder if I should leave the window down or up. Up is better if the van does tip over I surmise. But with everyone pushing and yelling and that little engine screaming in reverse we lurch backward towards the river as the van bounces from rock to rock with a lot of screeching metal bending sounds.  Finally we reach the other shore as I watch part of the front bumper float downstream.The whole right side of the bumper is now waving in the breeze and I don't want to see what the underside looks like. I start the engine and laugh when everything seems to be OK. So Alfredo and I try to retrace our route back to the original two fords and make our way back to Managua. By the time we find the river there are several trucks loaded with workers trying to decide if they can make the ford. They are on the other side so we decide to show them how it is done. We roar through the first one and hit the second one on a roll when I realize that the trucks are parked where we need to exit the river bank. There is no time to slow down so I decide to make a new track. We were making impressive strides until we hit the boulder and cave in the left lower quarter panel on the van. I wonder how much of this is covered by insurance? I'm pretty sure I bought it. Well that was enough Baja runs for today, so we headed back to the main road to Managua. Alfredo slept most of the way back to the city. I think he had too much stimulation today. I went back to the house and spent some quality time trying to piece that front bumper back together.It's time for bed. Andrew showed me the very impressive computer model that he and a classmate had developed for a school project. He has an impressive grasp of software development and probably has a great future in the field.But now it's bed time.

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Wednesday  November 20,2013I was awake before five listening to the very heavy rain. The thought of the rain persisting and making the school un reachable entered my mind. But for now I have to get the kids rolling and drop them at school. By six thirty the rain is heavier and I have a bad feeling about this project. Of course the Rotarian volunteers are already on their way by now, so there is no turning back.After dropping the kids at school, I assembled the last of the last minute tools and supplies. I also loaded a cooler and picked up snacks for the afternoon.By noon I was waiting at the airport for the American Airlines flight from Miami to arrive. I always ask the same questions: is the flight on time, did they all catch the flight, will all of the luggage show up on time? Do we have enough cold beer? But this would be a very good day. The rain stopped a couple of hours ago, the plane is on time and Matt, Craig, Gary, Wes, and JP have their luggage including all of the 120 some tee shirts for the kids. We get all of this load into the van and drive over to CMP to pick  up the few supplies remaining that were sent down on a container from Ormond Beach last week.first order of business is to get some lunch. We drove south to a little campesino restaurant called The old ranch, ranchito  viejo. The next stop was a quick look at Vulcan Masaya, an active volcano. The is an impressive view normally but because of the early rain the steam and sulphur smoke chased us off the mountain quickly. We drove back into Managua and toured the down town area. The church groups are setting up scenes of the Virgin Mary honoring the immaculate conception. Mary is really a more important figure in Latin America than even Christ. So along with the statues and the garish thirty foot tall yellow metal tree like sculptures honoring Hugo Chavez the downtown area was a mass of color and divergent political and religious symbolism.The traffic was terrific and we were out of beer for the passengers so we drove back to check our troop into Le Hotel Chateau. Once everyone was settled and we had a drink and some snacks, we drove the two blocks to Dona Heydies restaurant for some great Nicaragua food. But my switches were going off by the time we got there, so the boys were on their own for dinner.I'll pick them up at six tomorrow morning. Now time for bed for me.Thursday  November 21,2013It was light by five thirty as I prepared to leave. I said good bye to the kids and reconfirmed that Bella  was taking them to school. By the time I got to the hotel everyone was ready to go. So we loaded up, and headed for the first stop to pick up ice

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and snacks before meeting Alfredo. As usual he was waiting for us even though we were nearly half an hour earlier than planned. Alfredo knew the directions to the southern road to the school, so off we went. As we approached the river crossing we, could see many huge trucks filled with boulders and fill. They were going to be working on the washed out roadway today. But we will still be using the fords this morning and probably for the rest of the trip.  But at least they have started. We are at the school shortly after eight and to my relief, all of the supplies are there as are the parents. The concern I had whether the principal really understood all that had to be cleared and repaired, had been accomplished and all of the holes were alreadycompleted.  We are well ahead of schedule and haven't even started our first days work. We restrung our straight lines and made a couple of modifications as the rest of the crew started cutting the pipes to size. The parents had already started mixing the sand, gravel and concrete and the ladies had started hauling buckets of water from a nearby well. The school doesn't havea working well so the ladies are hauling very heavy buckets of water to the school for use in making the concrete. This is the best organized group we haveever worked with. All of the corner post were cemented in place by nine AM.WE ARE ON A ROLL. With the bucket brigade hauling water, three people making concrete, and two wheel barrows delivering it, we were working at a record pace. One glitch was that when the generator was delivered it didn't include the welder so we have an hour or so delay. But that doesn't stop the post installation group for a minute. By eleven the welder is working and by eleven thirty all the posts are installed and we are ready for lunch. This is a record time for post installation! We cleaned up and assisted the welder until our burrito lunches arrived at noon. After lunch we had completed all of our tasks and could let the welder finish his assemblies. So Carolyn told us the a tractor would be at the north entrance to,assist us through the swamp and therefore we would pass on the fords to the south. Sounded good to us. We will be staying just north of the mud hole at Milagros del Mar, so we will be showering and swimming sooner. The mud hole turns out to be two separate barriers about a quarter mile apart. The first is somewhat benign but not passable without the aid of the tractor. The second one was a different story.After Carolyn was towed through we got a chance to see first hand what a difficult tow this would be. The workers Hooked the chain up under the van butbefore we could start a herd of bulls, cows, and horses descended on us. But we finally got started. There were evidently large rocks imbedded in the mud and the noise under the van was a  screeching of rock on metal. Would there be anything left when

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and if we made it through this wallow? But we finally did and when we arrived at the hotel, people just stared at this mud dripping mess of a van. But a good hot shower, a couple of beers and a magnificent sunset made the end of this day worthwhile. Dinner at seven and then to bed. At least for me.Friday November 22,2013Breakfast at six thirty and another short assessment of the van and we wereready to drive whatever was left of it back to the school. But this will be one more pass through the double ford. So off we go. Everybody had a good nightsleep, so after we ford the streams one more time, we will be ready to finish this job. We wandered back through the cane fields and passed to long row of trucks working on the roadway. But to our surprise as we approached the river the construction crew had magically completed the base for the washed out section of road and we sailed a crossed, only two KM short of the school. This is going to be a very good day!  The welder and the parents were already working so without delay, we started to install the fence mesh to the posts.What a team! Gary and I and some of the parents attached the first roll of mesh  with Wes and Craig securing it to the uprights as we continued to stretch it. JP and Matt were right behind finishing the attachments to the top rails. We wove each of the 100 foot rolls together as we moved and continued with gusto until we had three sides complete. With Alfredo helping to position the rolls and working with the parents to clear the way we continued at a fast pace until we finished all but the front of the enclosure. By ten thirty we were on the last leg, and my worry about having enough supplies had vanished. As the welder completed making the gates, we finished the front fence and were ready for lunch before eleven. This was a record pace and also a very professional job, if I have to say so myself. We started organizing our tools and supplies as the ladies prepared another wonderful lunch. We were really exhausted but also exhilarated now that the job was complete and looked so good. After an early lunch, we loaded up all of our supplies and handed out all of the t shirts that we had brought for the school children and the teachers and parents. The beautiful white shirts with Escuela Zapote in an arc over the Rotary logo was a beautiful sight. Underneath the logo was our own Ormond Beach Rotary club designation. Truly a job well done. Working hand in hand with the local residents and with the help of The Hope and Development Foundation, we had helped to improve the security and health of this small school in this impoverished community. So off we go for the long drive south to San Juan del Sur. we stopped at Bens home to drop off the supplies and tools,and then continued south through Masaya, Catarina, Diriamba, and Nindiri.

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Back on the Pan American Highway we continued south through Rivas and then took the eleven KM beach road to San Juan del Sur. we finally arrived at six thirty, and were really ready for a shower and clean clothes and then dinner. This will be a relatively early evening after an exhausting but exhilarating day. To bed by Ten.Saturday November 23,2013We are all up by seven, and will pick up the fishing boat in the surf at eight. A quick stop for critical provisions, beer, and a light breakfast and we are ready for a day on the water. JP opted to stay on shore, but Matt, Wes, Gary, Craig and I were ready for a high seas fishing adventure. We had a great time trolling and then bottom fishing with hand lines- a new experience for most of us. When the beer ran out around noon it was time to head for the beach. We had a full load of fish that we gave to the very grateful crew. JP met us on the beach and we all went to lunch at the same beachfront restaurant that we used Friday night. Lobster in a garlic sauce for all! Five lobster tails, rice and a salad for $12! After lunch it was siesta time for some and a swim in the pool for the others. Matt, Craig and Gary were at the pool when two young girls were floundering after getting too deep. Craig and Matt were able to save them.  Our heroes! After a great sunset we had another wonderful lobster dinner. Tomorrow will be another long day with a real early start, so now it's time to sleep.Sunday November 24,2013A three AM start is early, but necessary as we have a two and a half hour drive back to the Managua airport. There are few cars on the road so we can make good time especially going through the small cities. The last hurdle will be turning in our well used van. We drop off all of our luggage and the crew at the airport and JP and I got to face the inspector at Budget. We were doing OK until he came to the front bumper.  But with JPs great negotiating skills and some luck we managed to get by with a slight $100 penalty. That was a bargain! After a quick breakfast of the traditional Sunday morning nacatamali, we were ready to leave Nicaragua. What a positive and exciting experience for all of us. The flights home were uneventful. All luggage accounted for, and we are all back home with an experience that will last a lifetime. Now it's time to start planning our next adventure.

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John and Karen Upchurch, David and Toni Slick

Karen Upchurch has put together another exciting, high activity trip.This time to S E Asia for a comprehensive nearly month long tour of an ancient part of the world that is rapidly becoming a business centerand tourist mecca. We will travel (for 24 hours!) from Orlando to HongKong

TOKYO, HONG KONG, MACAU, BANGKOK , SINGAPORE, KUALA LUM-PUR,YANGON AND MANDALAY IN MYANMAR, BELAWAN SUMATRA,

IN INDONESIA

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February 6-march 1st, 2014

to start our trip. Then on to Macau by high speed catamaran.  This will be a frenetic pace, and after one full day in Macau we fly to Bangkok for a couple of days before boarding the Silver Seas cruise ship, the Silver Shadow in Singapore for a two week  cruise.  The cruise will stop in ports in Malaysia, Sumatra, Thailand and then a four day layover in Myanmar.  We will tour the capital Yangon, and then fly to Mandalay and finally to Lake Inle in the eastern Myanmar highlands before re-boarding the ship, and cruising back to Singapore with more stops in Thailand and Malaysia.  Whew!!This will be a fantastic trip!

Thursday February 6,2014This will be a long day. David Jr. is at the front door at exactly four thirty AM.We have been up since a little after three finishing our packing and double checking.  At ten till five we pull into John and Karen's driveway as their garage door opens. They are ready to go also, and within a few short minutes we have all of the luggage loaded and we are on our way to Orlando International Airport. I love logistics! All luggage is checked through to HKG, HongKong. With little problem we are through TSA and waiting in the Delta Sky Lounge. So far so good!From seats 2 A and B and 3 A and B, flight 1718 pushes back from gate 75 at eight thirty sharp, and the adventure begins!We arrive in  Atlanta twenty minutes early, but since our flight to  Narita Airport Tokyo doesn't  leave for over two hours we will have a leisurely wait in the Delta Sky Lounge. Our first encounter was with Lowell and Nancy Lohman. They are on their way to The Dominican Republic. We had a chance to chat about their upcoming trip to Istanbul. Lowell had some reservations about the trip until we gave him a rave review about the city. I think he will be in great hands since Karen set up their itinerary. They had just met Ryan Adams and a group of fellow Ormondites heading for Tucson for a gem show. I think there will be a retail moment at the gem show! We'll be looking for some fabulous new jewelry at Oceanside Country Club soon.Now for the long flight to Tokyo and then on to HongKong. We will be flying on a Delta 747 and the first class seats are sleepers and very comfortable, but it's a long way to Tokyo- over 6,800 miles! As we push back in Atlanta the captain announces that due to favorable winds this will be a short flight, only twelve hours and forty five minutes! We have been in the air for nearly five hours and still have forty eight hundred miles and nearly eight hours to go. Longitude117 W, 52 N. we are north of

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Seattle in southwestern Canada. We will cross the southern Alaska coast shortly. Did I mention that this is a long flight?Eight PM Florida time. We are a little over half way, just crossing the  Aleutian Islands of south western Alaska. We are traveling across the ground at 621 Mph with an 80 MPH  tail wind. Three thousand miles to Tokyo. We will have a two and a half hour layover and then another four and a half hours to HongKong. This will be a long travel day. Longitude 163 W, 57N.We landed in Tokyo and after a two hour layover we are back in the air for our final leg of the day. This is an eighteen hundred mile jaunt, but we will be sleeping in HongKong  soon. 139 degrees East, 35 degreesN. Finally after nearly thirty hours of traveling we are in Tokyo! All luggage accounted for, and we are safely bedded down at the Hotel Intercontinental. We do need a victory drink before laying heads on pillows, but it's midnight and the hotel bar is closing soon so one drink will do it. We will sleep the sleep of the just tonight.

Friday  February 7,2014Somewhere over the pacific we lost Friday. We'll pick it up on the way home I'm told.Saturday February 8,2014We are up a little after six. The view from our room looks across the harbor to HongKong island.  There is a very nice harbour walk that even at that hour was bustling with people going to and coming from work. The water traffic was plentiful even before seven. Work boats, barges and ferries moved steadily along the waterfront. We had breakfast at eight thirty and met our tour guide, Joyce at nine thirty. Joyce's family was originally from shanghai but they were shipped to a rural area during chairman Mao's agrarian reform. The family was able to escape to HongKong shortly after that. Dad wasn't going to make a career out of rice farming. He's happy, the family's happy and so is Joyce.Our first order of business today will be to climb to the highlands via a funicular that was built in the late eighteen hundreds. This is always the way Toni likes to start her day! The views from the top were spectacular and gave a sense of direction for the rest of the tour. It was somewhat foggy, but still impressive. A clear day would be a treat. Next stop was a tour of the harbor area where the boat people live.  There are over a thousand small and large fishing boats in the small harbor. The population are mainly fishermen. Some work on big boats but most are on small boats that fish at night for what ever they can catch to survive. A lot of them live on their boats and sell their catch directly to the public. They raft up ,to a sea wall and sell right from their boats.

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The buyers pick out a fish and it is cleaned on the spot and delivered to the buyer. Our guide Joyce bought her dinner of four or five small fish right here.In the last few years the boat people have diminished their ranks. Several years ago there were over eight thousand boat families living on the water. Now there are less than a thousand. The boat tour was the best and most fascinating we have ever taken. It was  right up there with the New York harbour  tour.We followed Joyce to the Stanley marketplace. As in any large city the shopping area was filled with a mishmash of essentials, luxury goods, and staples.Lunch and some mall shopping in Aberdeen was next. Joyce took us to a very popular local restaurant. It was busy Saturday with a lot of family lunches. We were the only gringos in the place. Joyce ordered for us because all of the menu items were in Cantonese. The variety and exotic textures and flavors  made lunch very memorable, and very good. Our next stop was a walking tour of the shopping district. One street had store after store selling high end exotic watches. Block after block all of the storefronts featured displays of watches from the more mundane Rolex to exotics like Philipe Patek .We walked back to the hotel for a little Rand R. At five thirty we were energized and ready to start our evening experiences. First stop will be at the tallest building in HongKong. The hotel is The Ritz Carlton. Interestingly the lobby is on the 103 rd floor, and the view bar called Ozone is located on the 118th floor. The fog was too thick for viewing but the bar was spectacular enough to make the trip worthwhile. By seven we headed back to our hotel to watch the spectacular laser  light show on the buildings on the opposite shore on HongKong island as we sat in our hotel lounge in Kowloon. The show starts slowly right at eight o'clock and ends precisely at eight thirteen. After the show we take a taxi to a local restaurant with a curious name, Fook Lam Moon.  Curious name but great food and service. We were concerned when it was time to order since the first two pages were featuring shark fin in several different forms and also many forms of birds nest soup. Both endangered species! We opted for chicken and a terrific BBQ pork. It was a beautiful experience. By ten thirty we were back at the Intercontinental. After one last nightcap, it's time for bed.

Sunday February 9,2014After another big breakfast we  met Joyce in the lobby for our tour. We are going to the new territories today. First stop, Taipo market. It is a little rainy this morning but it is Sunday and the streets are filled with people. The Taipo market is for the village people. The people originally came once a month but now it is a everyday market

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anchored by the local Taoist temple. The market is organized and clean but still chaotic. It's somewhat depressing to see all of the huge bags of shark fin. But it is really a cultural requirement to serve to guests. Hopefully sometime it will be considered taboo. We took a tour of one of the oldest landholdings, the Tang family. There are four private landholdings outside of HongKong. The Tang properties are the largest. They have managed to create great wealth by leasing part of their land for a factory and for public housing. Interestingly only the male offspring participate in the revenue stream. The women are left out. They need to find their own way and revenue stream. We also stopped at an overlook to see Shenzhen. This city is in mainland China and is one of Deng Zhou Ping's special economic zones. There are many factories and high rise apartment buildings. Unfortunately the labor market has changed and many of the jobs have moved inland. It is rainy bleak morning, but our guide Joyce has helped to keep us informed and engaged. Now we are driving to the ferry terminal. We will leave HongKong and head to Macau. The high speed ferry will take less than an hour to arrive in Macau.This is definitely a high speed ferry!  They just announced that we will arrive late due to sea conditions. can't imagine moving much faster than this on the water! This is definitely rock and roll! Toni is having a very good time!Monday February 10,2014Well, it's been almost 20 hours since I wrote that last sentence. In the interim we have checked into the Mandarin Macau hotel, had a dink in the bar overlooking the harbour, had dinner at the The Tasting room restaurant ( more on that later). We also went to The Dancing Waters musical extravaganza.And also I retrieved my lost I-pad this morning! I left my back pack on either the ferry or the bus to the hotel yesterday. This I pad and my canon G11 camera were both inside. I didn't discover it missing until after the dinner show last night. After a frantic search of the room, I was convinced that the back pack was lost forever. But a phone call this morning to Miranda our guide, produced a miracle. The pack was safely on the locked bus! Now Toni is in charge of my pack.Back to yesterday. The hotel is beautiful and the bar has a great view of the surrounding casinos. Macau is now the gambling capital of Asia, and probably the world. Their total revenue dwarfs Las Vegas by a factor of five- $35BBto $7BB! The hotels and casinos are all new and full. The newest development, Dream City, is a giant shopping mall with every luxury brand name store. There are many hotels and casinos right in the mall, with incredible restaurants and floor shows, Dancing Waters being the most spectacular.

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It is an over the top take off of Cirque du Soliel with dancers, swimmers, divers, motocross- yes, motocross- and just about every other spectacle imaginable.This was the end of a long day, but we all stayed awake...most of the time.Back to The Tasting Room. This is a high end gourmet restaurant.  It takes longer to read the description of the menu selections than it does to eat them.We laughed as the server prattled on about the preparation and ingredientsonly to receive a minimalist plate of suspect caloric value.The walk through Dream City after the show was impressive. Even at that late hour all of the shops were open for business in case the show activated a retailinclination. The mall brings to mind the huge shopping center in Dubai, but I think the atmosphere is less tense here. It is cold here as we waited for our taxi back to the Mandarin hotel. We will be ready for warmer weather in Bankok this afternoon. As I mentioned earlier, this is a frenetic pace. At ten Miranda picked  us up, in another forty passenger bus, to take us to the airport. We finished the check  in procedures and by twelve thirty we were on our way to Bangkok. ZoomZoom! We will be there in less than three hours. Thai Airways is a very nice carrier with the youngest, prettiest and friendliest cabin attendants in the world. Our flight will take us south of Hanoi and over Central Vietnam. We will cross Cambodia and Laos before descending into southern Thailand and landing in Bangkok. The first half of the flight was above thick cloud cover but now we can see the rice fields and small villages as we continue to fly on a southwesterly course. The land is flat until we approach Bangkok and then it rises to a series of hills. The population of Bangkok is over seven million and predominantly   Buddhist, . Many of the four and six lane highways are elevated to minimize flooding during the rainy season. We flew over several large golf clubs that had either 27 or 36 holes. The Thai evidently love the sport. Clearing customs and immigration was a snap and our guide met the four of us again with a forty passenger bus. Plenty of room to stretch out on the trip into the city. We are staying at the Mandarin Oriental hotel right on the main waterway. The hotel is old but immaculate and the atmosphere is very comfortable. After getting our rooms organized and meeting our butler, we met in the Bamboo Bar for a welcoming drink. The hotel is famous as a retreat for many authors and many of the drinks are named after them. The African safari lodge decor made the exotic drinks taste even better. This is also the best place to hear jazz in the evening, if you can stay up that late. We wandered down the the waterfront to watch the parade of boats. This is one of the busiest waterfronts with a huge variety of crafts. There were sampans, junks, and ferries of every size and type. There were lines of barges being pulled on the incoming tide by incredibly small tug boats. The activity

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was constant and varied. We stood for a long time mesmerized by the traffic until we got thirsty. Fortunately there is a beautiful riverfront bar to slake our thirst as we continue to watch the watery activity. By six it's time to get ready for dinner at Lord Jim's. the restaurant is named after a seafaring character in a Joseph Conrad novel. He was a frequent guest at the hotel. We had a great seafood dinner, but the travel today took its toll. No jazz for us tonight. It's time for bed.

Tuesday February 11,2014We had an early breakfast and met our guide at eight. Today was a full day of Buddhist temples, palaces, a river cruise, and some retail. We had breakfast at The Riverside Terrace. Even at seven o'clock the river was alive with traffic. The ferry is full of school children crossing the river for school. We saw them last night at five on their way home. That's a long day for grade school kids. The breakfast would be our only meal of the day, so we made sure it was a big one.As happens many times as we travel, Karen met a woman from Texas that she had trekked with in Bhutan a short time ago. There is something exciting about traveling half way around the world and finding a familiar face. Six degrees of separation?We traveled through the morning rush hour to our first stop, the flower market. The vendors assemble beautiful and intricate arrangements for every event from weddings and funerals to temple offerings. We also passed through the vegetable and fruit market with its dazzling array of strange to us, fruits and produce.Wat Pho temple was our next stop. This immense complex was built in 1988, but it looks ancient. The intricate architectural details on the buildings are impressive, as are the number and sizes of the statues of  Buddha. The largest being the largest reclining  Buddha  in Thailand and maybe the world. We wandered through several buildings. One of them houses a restoration team that strips and restores Buddha statues from all over the country that have been abandoned or damaged by antiquity dealers who break off parts of the statues to sell to tourists and collectors.In another building is another impressive statue of  Buddha  carved from a solid block of jade, even though it is called the emerald  Buddha. This temple is used as the ordination place for new monks. There are so many beautiful and impressive stupas on the forty acre complex that we would have run out of film taking pictures in the days before digital cameras and cell phones. Wat Pho is Pronounced  (waat po). The Word Wat means temple. We were also treated to a half hour Thai massage. All four of us enjoyed the experience and walk a little taller now.

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Our next stop is the equally ornate temple grounds. The palace of the kings and many more temples and stupas are here. Trying to describe the magnitude of the architecture and statuary will have to be left to someone with more writing talent than this log's author possesses. I would urge the readers of this document to find time to visit this wonderful city. Maybe one of you will have more skill in describing what you see and feel after touring these sites.Our next adventure was a river tour on a long tail boat. These craft are slender and fast boats with  huge  V-8 motors and a very long driveshaft. They can ply the shallow waters of the rivers and canals. We went on a tour of some of the many canals that cover  large areas of the city. These watery thoroughfares are the only access for a large part of the population. There are water taxis that carry people from their houses to jobs and school. The variety of habitations range from opulent mansions to dilapidated shacks, often right next to each other. There are also many large  Buddhist  shrines around every bend. Interesting comment from our guide: this  country of sixty seven million people has over one hundred thousand temples that serve over ninety five percent of the population. These temples are used by any  Buddhist  as there is no concept of a local parish church. Anyone and everyone is welcome in any temple. Most Buddhists  will also have their own shrine in their home. This is a very religious and superstitious country. Our guide said that most of the religious activity has to do with the search for good luck.Our retail moment was next. After an aborted visit to our guide's chosen jewelry store we opted to go back to the hotel and make arrangements to be picked up by a store where Karen had a better experience.  Her efforts were rewarded with some beautiful bling for both ladies that will dazzle the OSCC crowd.Now back to the hotel for a chamber music concert and a cocktail. After the performance we walked a couple of blocks to one of the tallest buildings in Bangkok. The view of the city from the lounge on the sixty fourth floor was astonishing. We stayed long enough to absorb the view and have a drink, but decided to go back to the hotel for a light dinner. All four of use wedged into a two passenger tuck tuck for the ride back. The driver cranked up the music to keep the festive air going. Back at the hotel we enjoyed the jazz group in the Bamboo Room while we finished our snacks and night caps. This was another long but very enjoyable day.This hotel was a most enjoyable experience.  It has been a favorite haunt for such celebrated authors as Joseph Conrad, James Michener, and Noel Coward to name only a few. The staff is well trained and willing to help with any issue even though we

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encountered few. The restaurants are well located and appointed and the food and music top shelf. I'm not sure how you could improve on it.

Wednesday February 12,2014As hard as I tried to sleep in, I was still up at five. I used the extra hour to get this log back up to date. We are doing so much and moving so fast that by the end of the day there is a lot to record but We are too tried to do it. So we are as close to current as we' ll be for awhile.We met Karen and John at seven for another sumptuous breakfast buffet. In addition to all of the standard fare there were many Asian favorites and a complete assortment of local tropical fruits including my favorite the mangosteen. All of this will tide us over until late this afternoon.  That's my excuse for a full plate. Our guide, Kanchanat Phurattanakornkul, better know to us as Jay, was a delightful sprite that probably weighed less than a hundred pounds and didn't come close to five feet tall. She is a veteran guide and did a very good job of organizing our morning tour. Her first suggestion was to take all of our luggage and not try to come back to the hotel, but to go directly to the airport after our tour. This will give us a couple of extra hours to see the sights at the Bangkok floating markets.The drive to the markets is an interesting hour or so trip skirting the the gulf of Thailand. There are still tidal impounds and an industry to harvest salt from the flats. This is similar to the southern Bahamas, but the Thais still do the harvesting by hand. They rake the salt into piles after the water evaporates and then shovel it into wheel barrows. Then they wheel the salt the packing station, where it is packed in large bags for distribution. all done without the aid of machinery. Unless you consider a shovel and wheel barrow machinery.The trip to the floating markets begins at a dock with many long tail boats lined up to take us tourists on a long ride through a series of canals. The closer to the markets the more boats. In what looked like utter chaos and a ripe chance for canal rage, cool heads prevailed and organization erupted. We allmanaged to arrive at the markets unscathed and unfazed.  This little city on a back water canal was full of visitors today. The market consists of a large building with vendors hawking their wares and a plethora of small boats selling fresh fruits, vegetables and a variety of additional " stuff". We wandered the market bargaining hard for trinkets. Jay and our driver picked us up to bypass the long tail boat trip back to the boat ramp. Now for our final stop in Thailand. Jay took us to the Train Market. This is an outdoor market that straddles the railroad tracks. There are four trains a

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day that use the tracks, so all of the market stalls need to move off the tracks when the trains come. But the vendors leave their wares between the tracks as the trains roll through. This is a very interesting activity. Now it's time to go to the airport, and pick up our Thai flight to Singapore. As we drove back through the city we can get a better view of this sprawling metropolis of seven million souls.  We arrive at the airport with plenty of time to get a snack before boarding the Thai Airlines flight. There is a unique advertisement that is interactive. As you approach the billboard there are cameras that put you in the advertisement. We played around with it and took photos of our billboard advertising debut. We also saw a huge roadway billboard today the was bigger than anything in Times Square and the images were as clear as a bell. This is a hi tech country.Our Boeing 777 is off on time and the flight to Singapore is trouble free and quick. It was easy to nap on the two hour flight. The sun was setting and we all had aisle seats. The rest did us good as we lost another hour from Bangkok to Singapore. But we decided we should have a happy birthday welcome to Singapore. An almost on the boat nightcap. We met in The Lobby bar. Karen was smiling like the Cheshire Cat while we waited for our Singapore Slings. I thought she was just happy to have made it this far. That was before the band struck up a rousing Asian rendition of happy birthday, and the gorgeous singer was at my side as the manager and wait staff delivered a Thai cake that Karen and John had smuggled in from Thailand. What a surprise birthday party in a very surprising city. Now time for bed.

Thursday February 13,2014Post birthday. Still in Singapore. I evidently like writing that. Singapore ! Singapore! Singapore! There I got it out of my system. We had a rare morning without a  guide. So after breakfast we caught the local ferry /taxi for a tour  of the Singapore basin. There's that word again! While we waited for the ferry we walked around the area near the hotel. The city keeps their parks immaculately clean. The same for the waterways. We watched as a maintenance boat "vacuumed" the surface of the canal. The buildings are awe inspiring. From the ferry we can see the worlds largest Ferris wheel and a huge three building high rise with a ship happily resting across the top. The variety and size of the buildings are spectacular. The Arts and Science museum resembles a giant lotus blossom. Or if you are a baseball fan, a catchers mitt.We left the hotel at one o'clock for the ship. The Silver Seas Shadow was waiting for us. We have the same stateroom that we enjoyed last summer in Alaska.  After a couple of hours getting our suite organized we met John and Karen at the pool bar.

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Our old friend Tayfun Zol from Istanbul is now the head waiter at the pool bar. We first met Tayfun on a cruise in the Indian Ocean a few years ago. He was also on this ship during our Alaska cruise last summer. It was good to see him again. This is another of those small world connections.After the mandatory safety drill, we had dinner in the restaurant called The Restaurant. We sailed at six, and cruised all night to our next port, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Time for bed and we'll awake in another new country.

Friday February 14,2013   Valentines DayWe are up at six thirty. We have an early breakfast and meet John and Karen at the gangway for our city tour. After a little disorganization we got started with our small team of fellow tourists. The first part of the tour was a series of city gardens most of them purposely kept in a natural state. Along with hibiscus and bougainvillea, there were several variants of palm trees. Interestingly the palm oil industry is the third largest revenue and job producer for the country, right behind manufacturing and tourism. Malaysia is considered the Detroit of S E Asia as they produce more than a million cars and trucks a year. Next stop was a large outdoor aviary with a large and varied variety of birds. Our next stop was a buffet luncheon in  the business district at The Intercontinental Hotel. This was the best tour luncheon in memory.  The selections ranged from a full seafood raw bar to an exotic selection of local faire. Our last stop of the day was at The Petronas building complex. There are two eighty story office buildings and a six story shopping mall. The mall tour was a great people watching experience. Malaysia is sixty five percent Muslim, and the different interpretations of proper dress ranged from a complete head to toe burka with an eye slit, to very pretty habbibs and jeans or skirts. There didn't seem to be any judgement call on either side of that spectrum.  We are back on the ship by five and getting ready for the Virtuoso cocktail party.After the party we went to dinner with Robert and Mary Cellerio from Long Island. Robert is a newly retired stock broker and Mary is an accomplished photographer. The have been traveling in Asia since mid January. We had a good evening of discussion. Tomorrow we will arrive in Belawan at eight. Since this cruise to Myanmar is very new, some of the ports haven't developed many tours or tourist infrastructure yet. My guess is that Belawan will be one of the least developed destinations. Now for some sleep. We set the clocks back one hour tonight.

Saturday February 15, 2014

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At five thirty I watched the moon set while walking for the first time in a few days. Sunrise will be at 6:39. It's still hazy out with many ships waiting to load or unload. Belawan is a very busy liquid bulk delivery port. There is a large refinery right in the the port with many of the ships were waiting to offload crude oil or possibly load gasoline. We watched a dry bulk ship offload a white powder that was probably  potash, unless the port has a big drug habit. But that  isn't probable since even the possession of drugs is punishable by hanging. They are so strict that they call their drugstores pharmacies or apothecaries. There  were no organized tours of the area so we opted for a taxi to take us into Madan, the closest city to the port. This area is poorly developed and Madan is  an older and very shop worn city of over two million people. The roads from the port are in a state of complete disrepair as are the buildings and shops. The traffic was chaotic. They turned every two lane highway into five or six, and the little motor bikes were like flies darting in and out of traffic.We went to the Grand mosque that was also in need of repair. There we met Hamdan a manager of the mosque. He has worked there for twenty four years.  We had a very interesting conversation about Islam in Indonesia. The country is predominantly Sunni but there are also Shiites, Christians,  Buddhists  and many other religions living and working together in peace. He had made his pilgrimage to Mecca eleven years ago. It takes forty days to complete the hadj   because you also need to go to Medina and many other holy sites. When I asked him  whether the Sunnis and Shias have to go at separate times he said, "no, when we go to Mecca we are all Muslims".our next stop was the Sultan's  palace.This is in the same state of disrepair as the rest of the city, but we did have a very enjoyable experience.  A group of fourteen year old school children asked if they could have their picture taken with us. They spoke excellent English and were very happy to practice it. We had a group photo and then several of them wanted individual photos with us. They were very interested in Karen's golden hair and were excited that she had taught children their age. They also wanted wanted a group photo with us and their teacher and headmaster. We really felt like celebrities. I don't think they have a lot of contact with Americans or any westerners for that matter. We left Madan on this high note and will remember their smiling faces long after we forget the bad roads and crumbling buildings.Now back to the ship through an hour of highway chaos.We had lunch at the pool bar, and then attended a vey good lecture on Thailand.

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Dr. Phillip Martin, a professor at UC  Davis gave a well organized lecture on the history, development and politics of Thailand.  We signed up for another tour in Phuket, and also a candlelight tour of the Shwedagon palace in Yangon.Tonight will be a formal night starting with a cocktail party with the Captain at seven.Dinner at The Restaurant again was followed by an Abba review by the Silver Seas singers. Good stuff! Now it's time for bed. We'll  be in Phuket, Thailand when we wake up.

Sunday February 16, 2014We are off the ship by eight thirty this morning for a day tour of Phuket Island.This is a virtuoso voyager tour and as such is a small group. Our guide today is Toto, which is short for a very long unknown name. By the way the Thai language has  forty seven consonants and thirty two vowels and in written form there are no spaces. Thatwouldlooksomethinglikethis. But for the sake of our readers I'll continue to use spaces in this log. The first stop, the Chalong Temples. There are several very ornate temples and this morning being Sunday, there are a lot of worshipers. But there are oblivious to the camera toting tourists. There is a large celebration at one temple. A young novitiate is being ordained as a full Buddhist  monk. This is a long and ancient ceremony with a band and many worshipers. During a part of the ceremony the new monk turns his back on the crowd and throws handfuls for small wrapped coins. Those in attendance scramble to pick up,the coins as they assuredly will bring good luck. The chief Buddhist  and his followers then enter the temple for the final acts of the ceremony which concludes with the new monk receiving his orange garments. As he turns to leave the temple with his new robes,  the head monk receives a cell   phone call. This ancient ceremony concludes with a very modern high tech  ending.In one of the other temples there is a very large wedding party in all of their opulent regalia. This wedding turns out to be staged or maybe a film company working on an advertisement. We all enjoyed the colorful scene anyway. Most of the temples are over a thousand years old, but one was only a few years old and was built in honor of their King's  fiftieth anniversary.Now on to our next stop, a rubber tree plantation. This was a very interesting tour to see how the latex is drained from the tree, and how it is processed for sale to the next stage of production. The trees are tapped similarly to maple syrup gathering. The workers start at two in the morning because the cooler trees produce more latex. A worker will tap six hundred trees a day. The trees can be used for about thirty years and are then replaced by newer ones. There are several processes to get the raw latex

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into sheet form. Those sheets are then sold to second level processors to make products as varied as rubber medical gloves and tires. After a driving tour of Phuket City we stopped at a local mansion converted into a restaurant, The Blue Elephant. We had a very good lunch of local recipes before heading back to the ship. I sat next to Michael Milin, a lobbyist for Israel and a very large contributor to Mitt Romney's last presidential campaign. He took Romney to Israel to meet with Bebe Netanyahu. The discussion centered around the failures, both domestic and international of the current administration. For the most part I was in complete agreement. Michael was a financial consultant that promoted many large seminars. He made a lot of money until the '08 financial meltdown. He now spends his time lobbying for Israel and running a finance company that finances automobiles for people with bad credit. He said his default rate is only fifteen percent but when they repossess the cars they are usually in pretty bad shape. It was an interesting lunch discussion. He and his wife Irene travel extensively so we picked up some good information on future trip possibilities.Mike is a unique individual. Once back on the boat it was nap time. At six we made dinner plans with John and Karen and a pre dinner drink in the Panorama lounge.Dinner tonight was at the pool bar. What a feast of giant prawns and beef!After dinner the marathon continued with a dinner show in the Athenian Lounge. It was a great show featuring  songs by George  Michael, the Beetles and others. To bed at eleven with a five o'clock wake up. Tomorrow will be another full day.

Monday February 17,2014Up by five thirty for my walk and breakfast shortly afterward. We meet our tour guide at a little before eight for at fast boat ride to Phang Bay National Park. The seas are running a little high, but it is a comfortable hour and a half ride to our first stop. The scenery is magnificent with giant sandstone outcroppings. There are caves and passageways through these formations that are attainable by kayak. The are also bird and bat caves on the steep slopes that are worked by Thai workers to harvest the bird nests for export to China as an ingredient for bird set soup.  The workers scale the steep slopes and risk their lives to collect the nests, the main flavor for the soup. The flavor comes from the bird saliva that holds these nests together. YUM!We stopped at several islands to see the sights and take pictures. Oh, and buy souvenirs if so needed. The final stop was a floating community that serves as home for the few fishermen still plying these waters, and nearly a thousand people that serve the burgeoning tourist industry. The government has set up a school for the children. Interesting point is that all of the workers and children are Muslim, except for the

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government administrators, the postmaster, and any other civil servant job. I think the are all Buddhists. The ride back to the boat was a pleasant hour and a half. We were all hungry and thirsty by the time we got back to the ship so we went directly to the pool bar to quench our thirst and have some lunch. The ship sailed at exactly two.  We are heading for Yangon, Myanmar. This will be two and a half day sail. We need a chance to catch our breath after the last few days.We'll meet John and Karen in The Bar at seven before dinner. This is just over the half way point of our trip. Twelve days out and twelve to go. Having seen and experienced all that we have so far, I can hardly wait to see what's I store for us the rest of the trip. Yangon, Mandalay and Lake Inle should be spectacular. We will see the golden spire of the  Shwedagon  temple as we arrive the day after tomorrow in Myanmar. We had a very good dinner in the Italian restaurant La Terrazza , and finished the night with a terrific guitar performance by George Sakellariou, a student of Segovia. It was a brilliant performance. It was a nice way to finish a very full day. Now to bed.

Tuesday February 18,2014We slept in today as this is a full day at sea. Breakfast after eight thirty and then we will find things to fill the day. We are about half way to MyanmarWe have just crossed twelve degrees north latitude, ninety seven degrees east longitude. We are in the Andaman Sea just east of the Andaman Islands about one hundred and twenty miles. We will pick up the harbour pilot around three AM tomorrow morning. So we will continue this NW heading until then. This is a very remote passage. There are no fish, or birds and we haven't seen another boat all morning. Toni spent the day reading as did John and Karen. I finished my Spanish homework and took a long nap. By two o'clock we got organized for the afternoon seminar on Myanmar by Dr. Phillip Martin. His lectures are well organized and filled with a lot of detail about the history, people and politics of the country. We met John and Karen afterward and spent some time organizing the trips we will take in Langkawi, Penang and Melaka. They are all in Malaysia and will be our next three stops after Myanmar. It was a beautiful evening so we dined at the outdoor pool area.  The newest dining advance is a steak and prawn dinner served on a superheated block of stone. The meal is delivered raw or rare and you finish it to your desired cooking state   on the block. No more blaming the kitchen for an over or under cooked steak. You are in charge. But be warned that you must keep your fingers away from the block. OUCH!! I'm sure mine will heal before the trip is over. The ten o'clock show was a broadway review and was very good as usual. By eleven, its time for bed.

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Wednesday February 19,2014We are finally in Myanmar. I set the alarm for five AM, but forgot that we were to set our clocks back a half hour. So my early morning walk started at four thirty instead of an hour later. I'll catch up on lost sleep on the plane this morning. The ship docked at six thirty just as the sun was rising. It was a beautiful sunrise through the hazy morning ground fog. We had a quick breakfast and then waited for our passports until just before eight. Our driver was waiting for us as we reached the pier and we were on our way to the airport. The trip will take the most part of two hours through the morning rush hour. The views reminded  us of early trips to Nicaragua and present day Cuba. There were lots of bicycles and small motorcycles competing with busses, trucks, cars and an occasional horse drawn cart. The infrastructure is decades behind even the emerging countries that we've visited. Huts and shacks are homesteads. The streets leading from the port are in such disrepair that the potholes have potholes. The closer we got to Yangon, the better the roads got but the traffic got thicker. We passed the home of Aun Sang Sui Ki where she spent twenty years under house arrest. The guide referred to her as "The Lady".  She will be the top candidate for Prime minister in the 2015 elections, but because of a recent constitutional amendment that eliminates candidates that have foreign spouses or children, she may not be seated even if she wins.Some of the very basic retail areas were a tumbledown array of shanties selling everything from soft drinks to cell phones and SIM cards. The apartment buildings are not allowed to be more than  eight floors unless they have an elevator. But because of the erratic nature of their electrical grid, most of the apartment buildings are eight floors.  Our guide described life with his family in detail. They get up very early. Mom is first, to make breakfast for the monks and her family, while dad feeds the water buffalo. The animals are very important because the family grows rice with no mechanical help. They all work until ten thirty or so and then lunch and siesta in the heat of the day. Then back to work until almost dark. They have no electricity so their last meal needs to be before dark, especially when they eat fish. That is so they can see the bones and not choke on them.We arrived at the Yangon Airport terminal by ten. Our flight is supposed to leave at eleven, but at five 'till eleven there is still no sign of boarding. But we are waiting patiently. The flight up the  Irrawaddy river valley was a little hazy but we could see the mountains to the east, the southern tail of the Himalayas.

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The flight stopped in Heho, our destination for tomorrow. Then we had a short hop to Mandalay. This will prove to be one of our best tour days.Sai, our guide was waiting as we exited the airport, and we were quickly on our way. This will be an all day tour, with the final stop being our hotel, The Mandalay Resort, at the foot of Mandalay Hill. More on that later.Our ride into town was an eye opening trip back in time. The rickety bamboo shacks lined both sides of the roadway for miles. Speaking of miles, the country measures distance with miles and furlongs. A furlong being one eighth of a mile. They also drive on the right side of the street. But most of the cars are used,  imported from Japan and have the steering wheel on the right side. A very different arrangement. As in other parts of Asia the driving is a little nerve wracking with thousands of motor bikes zooming in and out of traffic. The traffic is a combined mass of cars, bikes, busses, and trucks with a few oxcarts and horse buggies thrown into the mix. This whole mass is moving with fractions of an inch separating all of the moving parts.Our first stop was in Amara Pura, a city just south of Mandalay. We walked through the ancient stupas, some in better condition than others. The horse drawn carriages were the city's taxis. We walked to the riverfront and watched the local fishermen pull there nets. They keep the smallest fish to eat and the bigger ones are sold at the local market. We walked the gauntlet at the local gift market. One little girl, Yeha, attached herself to us and gave us a tour of the rickety wooden docks that was home to the trinket vendors.  She pointed out the herd of ducks on the lake that were being followed by a herder in a boat. His long pole was his propulsion and the way he kept the ducks moving forward. She also described the jade carvers as local people that allowed her to sell their wares on this pier. She was market fluent in English, French, Italian and Chinese. This little girl was twelve and already a great salesperson. Yes, we did buy a jade necklace from her.Next stop after an interesting drive through southern Mandalay, was the Maha Muni pagoda. This beautiful stupa is the largest in Mandalay.  We toured the grounds and took a lot of photos. The most interesting item is a huge gold covered sitting  Buddha. There is a photo of  the Buddha from 1901 when it became custom to put gold leaf on him as a form of adoration. They now estimate that there is over eighty tons of gold on the statue! There were still people waiting to attach more gold leaf while we were there. Our next stop was The Palace Monastery. This ornate teak building was moved from the King's palace grounds to the mountains as a summer homer, and then disassembled again and erected at its present location. It was used as a palace  until

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the king died and was then converted to a monastery. The monks were moved out and it is now a tourist attraction.We stopped at a shop that makes gold leaf. This is a very tedious job that takes a small solid gold fob of 32 grams and processes it out to make the leaf. The pounding process is all manual and requires hours of hand pounding. This leaf is then used for ornamentation, adoration and even as a food ingredient. We toured an area in the city where all of the marble carvers work and sell their art. Almost every sculpture is a Buddha. There are huge pieces and small pieces. The rough carving is done by tradesmen and the the fine carving is completed by the artisans, all men. The final polishing is done by hand by the women. With all of the marble dust I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a high rate of respiratory problems. We looked at two beautiful pieces. One looked very good but it was not the best marble. The other was almost translucent and of the best marble and was priced as such. It was under eight hundred dollars. What a bargain.Our next stop was the Ko Pho Daw pagoda that contains the worlds largest book. There are 729 individual buildings each housing a marble slab. They contain the hand written works and sayings of The Buddha. With writing on both sides, that makes 1458  pages of scripture. You really have to see the size of each building to understand the scope of this project. To make sure that the writings were accurately translated each carved line of writing was reviewed by six different scholars before continuing. The process took over seven years.By the time we  were getting ready to leave the the pagoda the sun was at a perfect angle to bathe the golden stupa with a supernatural glow.Our next challenge was to get to the top of Mandalay hill to watch the sunset. The time was close and the traffic going up the hill was heavy, but our driver drove with a vengeance. There were so many tour busses and vans that it looked nearly impossible for us to make it in time. We practically ran from the van to the elevator that would take us to the viewing platform. but the elevator wouldn't cooperate. As we were leaving to try plan B the doors of the elevator opened and were were rushed to the top, and got there with no more than a minute or two to spare. The effort was truly worth it. There were hundreds of tourists on the viewing platform as the sun sank beneath the western mountain range. The sky turned red and then orange before fading to a blue grey. We stayed on the platform and let most of the tourists leave. The parking lot was so chaotic that there was no reason to rush. Win, our guide pointed out the many pagodas that we hadn't visited and our hotel which was at the foot of the hill. As the light faded and the bulk of the tourists did too, we made our way back to the van, and

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to the Mandalay Resort Hotel. After a quick check in and  a visit to our rooms, we made a mad dash to the Rudyard  Kipling Bar to make sure we made happy hour. The thoughts of The Road to Mandalay breezed through the room as we hydrated.Dinner was our next activity but due to a few translation errors we thought that the restaurant was on the fourth floor or maybe the fifth floor. We all check both floors to no avail. As it turned out it was on the first floor. We finally had dinner at  the very good Chinese restaurant and finished a phenomenally interesting day.

Thursday February 20,2014We have another early wake up today. Our guide Sai will be in the lobby at six to take us back to the airport for our early flight to Heho. The flight was close to being on time and a half hour later we were met by EI EI, the airport guide in Heho. No, I'm not making these names up. She is licensed and trained only for in-airport greetings and delivered us to our guide Win, in the parking lot. So Win and driver Bin were ready to whisk us off on another fantastic all day tour before we finally get to our hotel on Lake Inle.As usual the drive through the country side was eye opening, but not nearly as so as our first stop, the weekly market. The farmers don't rest on Saturday and Sunday, so market day is their day of rest, entertainment, social gathering and party. This is NOT a tourist attraction. We wandered through all of the stalls selling the necessities of life. There were dried fish, vegetables and fruits along with freshly cut meat and chicken. The fish were so fresh that some were still alive. Along with the necessities there were vendors selling herbs and spices and even edible rocks. I did try them, and can't say that I would recommend them as a steady diet. There were also stalls for fortune tellers, astrologers and soothsayers. I'm sure if we could go back in time a couple of thousand years, we would find a similar market with nearly identical offerings. There were mountain tribesmen at the market  wearing their traditional garments and head dresses. Win pointed out several different tribes. Most of them were at market to buy.Now on to Lake Inle. When we left the market we drove a short distance to the dock to pick up our transportation for the next two days. We boarded another type of long tail boat. These are used by nearly everyone one the lake for transportation. They are different from the big engined ones used in Bangkok,but serve the same purpose. The propulsion is a one cylinder Chinese engine. It is direct drive meaning that there is no transmission. The engine is started by spinning a heavy flywheel by hand. The prop is held out of the water until the boat is pointed in the right direction. There is no reverse so docking requires a lot of advanced planning

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and an oar. We are now in a canal heading south to the main body of the lake. The traffic going both ways is fairly heavy with the tourists heading south and the work boats moving their loads of fruits and vegetables north to market. As soon as we entered the main body of the lake our boat stopped to watch a local fishermen use his traps to catch fish. The fishermen work hard to make a living on this lake. Some use very small mesh gill nets while others use a form of drop net. Still others use a fishing pole and line.There were many other working boats collecting seaweed and hyacinth  roots.We crossed the lake from north to south before coming to the floating gardens. This is possibly the only place in the world you can witness this. The local tribes that live on the water collect large tracts of hyacinth roots that have enough air to allow them to float. They then move the root mass to a location where it can be anchored in place with long bamboo poles. Many of the root balls are anchored in a line and the bottom muck is heaped on top to create a floating mass. The farmers then grow a variety of vegetables on these man made fertile gardens. They were growing tomatoes and cauliflower at this time of year. These gardens extend for miles and are surrounded by the stilt houses of this farm community. Some of the houses are new and substantial but most were made of bamboo and rattan matting. We had a very good luncheon in one of many floating restaurants and then visited several craft shops that are also stilt houses in this same large floating village. The first stop was another small village. They concentrate their skills on silk and lotus fiber weaving. They made thread from the fibers of lotus stalks. The thread and woven cloth was originally made only for monks because the lotus was a favorite of The Buddha. But now it is expensive and available to us tourists. They also produce silk thread and weave beautiful silk shawls. The thread making process is incredibly labor intensive.Our next stop was to an ancient iron forge. The smiths were working the forge with one very old man sitting on top working the air bellows.There were four workmen working on one piece. As they removed the glowing steel from the fire the smiths would swing the hammers in a very structured way to form the hot metal. The sound of the hammers rung through the bamboo building. I was a sound that probably is unchanged in a thousand years. "There by the forge the Smithy stands".The next stop, the silversmith. This process here also is unchanged in centuries except for the propane burner to work the silver. They were making very ornate bowls and stupa style vases. As with all of the stops there was a gift shop on the way to the exit.

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We walked across a very rickety bamboo bridge to see a vanishing group of tall necked women. These women wear a series of metal bands around their necks. They  look like they have very tall necks, but the rings really lower the shoulders to create  such a look. The rings are incredibly heavy and are marks of beauty and supposedly are a defense against attacks by tigers. The rings hold up their heads and therefore the neck muscles atrophy to the point that the rings can't be removed.Our last stop is to a floating monastery.  We have seen a lot of Buddhas, monasteries and stupas, so we are more interested in getting to our hotel. So back in the boat we go for a half hour ride across the lake to the Inle Lake Resort and Spa. All of the fishermen were soaking their nets one last time before sunset as we headed to the hotel dock. We checked in for another short stay. This was a day of so many fantastic experiences and revelations that we didn't mind the quick visit. After drinks and another good dinner it's time for bed. Tomorrow will come early.

Friday February 21,2014And early it was. We were up before five and in the boat before six. We had a breakfast box  of a croissant, a piece of fruit and a hard boiled egg. We will eat breakfast in the van. But first a half hour boat ride back across the lake. It isdark in the still morning and the air has a chill. But as the sky lightens we are treated to the sights of the early morning fishermen and a sunrise. As the sun clears the eastern hills it cast a mirror image of itself and the hills across the still water of the flooded rice fields. A photo can't do justice to the view.As we a approach the ferry dock all of the early morning activities come in to view. The man washing his family's breakfast plates in the river. Obviously he is well trained on domestic responsibilities. Another man is brushing his teeth in the river as his fellow boatmen prepare their crafts for another day of fishing.The van ride back to Heho airport is a little less than an hour. Just enough time for some breakfast and a little sightseeing. We are met in the parking lot by Ei Ei. Our guide and driver aren't licensed to enter the terminal so we say our goodbyes quickly and move on to immigration. Even though this is a domestic flight they check everyone's passports. We are very close to the golden triangle, a very dangerous poppy growing area and Myanmar has very strict drug trafficking laws. A drug possession arrest is a death sentence. Ergo the strict oversight of all airplane passengers. We have a light passenger load, but a stop in Bagan fills the plane for the trip back to Yangon. It's very hazy on the flight back, so no sightseeing. It gave me a chance the catch up on this log before the battery went dead.

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We all have carrying on only so in Yangon we are quickly united with Aung our guide and whisked through the airport to the waiting van. We will head directly to Shwedagon pagoda. This is absolutely the highlight of a trip filled with numerous candidates for that title. The pagoda sits on a hill overlooking the city. It is a collection of many stupas, mainly gold but also white and other colors surrounding the magnificent Shwedagon pagoda. This temple has been in existence for over twenty five hundred years but has been enhanced along the way by many different kings. The centerpiece is a series of gold leafed structures sitting on top of one another to create an awe inspiring spire covered with over eighty tons of gold with a peak encrusted with precious stones and diamonds. We walked around as our guide described the history behind each image. There are special shrines for each day of the week and many other special shrines. Since today is Friday there are huge crowds at the Friday corner. Every Buddhist knows which day he is born on and that he's special meaning in his or her life. Interesting note: there are eight days in the Buddhist week. Wednesday morning and afternoon are considered two separate days. Each day is represented by an animal. Tigers, elephants, and lions are some. Beware of Thursday and Friday. They are mouse and guinea pig! We wandered the entire pagoda for nearly two hours and could have stayed longer, but the marble tiles were heating up fast and as in all pagodas and monasteries you remove your shoes and socks before entering. What was interesting was the comfort level of the different tiles. The dark tiles and even light colored ceramic retained the heat of the sun, but the white marble tiles were significantly cooler.  After this magnificent visit to Shwedagon Pagoda anything else would be anticlimactic. We toured the crowded city center by van and then had a quick stop at the river to watch a rice boat being unloaded. A constant stream of laborers carried bag after bag on their heads from the shipto waiting trucks.  This mass of human labor has been used for centuries, but most ports have modernized the process hundreds of years ago.This was the end of a wonderful tour, but we are still an hour and a half from the ship in heavy traffic as usual. We are back  on the ship in time for a late lunch. But the excitement isn't over yet. After lunch and a quick shower we hop back on a bus for a trip back to Shwedagon pagoda for a night tour. The traffic at night seems even more congested than during daylight. Enhanced by more motorbikes and waves of pedestrians. Children and whole families run the gauntlet through the mass of vehicles and somehow miraculously cheat death. The temples on a Friday night are filled with worshipers, monks, Friday night partiers and a few of us tourists. This was a unique experience but about an hour too long. By nine thirty we were all back on the

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bus and repeating the chaotic trip back to the ship for the third time today. But with reduced traffic and a terrific driver we were back on the ship in an hour. No nightcap tonight.  We are all exhausted from an exhilarating day. Tomorrow is a day at sea, so we'll have time to recover.

Saturday February 22,2014Even though this will be a day at sea I'm up before six and on deck for my 5K.The ship sailed at exactly six AM. We are heading south to Langkawi, a two and a half day sail. As of noon today we are at 15 degrees north latitude and 93 degrees east longitude. We have 810 nautical miles until we reach port in Lankawi. We are sailing southeast in the gulf of Martulum. This gulf is shallow with only eighty one feet under our ship. This will definitely be a day of rest.We had breakfast at nine thirty and then read and got this log updated. This afternoon will be more reading and some Spanish homework for me.  At three we went to a lecture on Malaysia by Dr. Phillip Martin of UC Davis.  The Malaysians have experimented with social preference similar to our affirmative action programs to allow preferences for the bumiputera (sons of the soil or native Malays). The unintended consequences are that the native Malays get enough subsidy from the government (taken from the Chinese and Indians) that they don't need to work.  Sound familiar? Thus the  requirement for many foreign workers to fill the demand for work. Many of them come illegally from border states like Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia. Malaysia has an economic plan for a stable financial system by 2020, but there are several major hurdles. The population of thirty million is sixty  six percent Sunni  Muslim. Although they claim that all religions are free to practice, there is a board that refuses to allow Muslims to convert to Christianity. The Muslims are subject to sharia law in matters such as marriage and inheritance.Malaysia's prime economic driver is manufacturing. They produce many electronic devices such as hard drives and they also have the only national car manufacturing company, the only one in SE Asia. The second driver is tourism followed by palm oil production and rubber plantations. The palm and rubber plantations employ a majority of the migrant workers.After the presentation we stopped at the pool grill for a hamburger and a beer.Now I need another nap.We went to a cocktail party with the captain and his officers at seven, and then had a wonderful dinner with John and Karen in Le Champagne, a small gourmet restaurant.

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After a fantastic dinner and more interesting conversation we stopped at the Athenian lounge to hear the nightly entertainment. Now it's time for bed.

Sunday February 23,2014We are up a little later this morning. We set our clocks ahead another half an hour before retiring last night. Now we have no idea what the time difference is between our ship and home. And tonight we set them ahead another hour.It's not much of a problem since we can't communicate with anyone. We have no cell service now. I walked at six fifty this morning but it seemed later with the sun rising. We had breakfast at eight thirty and now have time to organize our morning. Toni went to an interesting presentation of the wine industry and I took a nap. We will meet John and Karen at twelve thirty for lunch and then another presentation. This one is about piloting a plane through a volcanic ash eruption. It happened in 1981 on a flight from Singapore to Perth, Australia. At that time there were no warnings or even communications related to the danger to aviation regarding volcanic ash in the atmosphere. The pilot, Eric Moody, was the presenter of the story. His Boeing 747 entered the area of ash contamination that disabled all four engines of the plane. There is a happy ending but there was a lot to tell about the incident before the plane and its 247 passengers and crew were safely back on the Tarmac in Jakarta, Indonesia. John and I spent the better part of an hour compiling all of our photos on our individual I pads. We now have enough photo proof to put any family group or dinner party to sleep. We'll meet for cocktails at six thirty then dinner at seven with a delightful couple from Melbourne, Australia  Neville  and Christine Day.We are back in the Andaman Sea still heading southeast. We have 295 feet under our hull, and will be in Langkawi by noon tomorrow. Latitude 9 degrees 21 minutes north, longitude 97degrees 45 minutes east.We did have a wonderful time last night with the Days. Neville is a retired sales exec and worked for Carrier A/C. Christine is a pediatric radiologist and still works two days a week. She works in a rough side of Melbourne working with Medicare mothers to be. Shortly after we ordered dinner it started to rain on the outdoor deck. The staff quickly picked up our tables and moved them back under a covered deck and the party continued uninterrupted. It was a very good evening but it is definitely  time for bed.

Monday February 24,2014We lost an hour last night so my early exercise was at eight. That's a late start and we almost missed breakfast. What a tragedy that would have been. After being on this

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floating feedlot for nearly two weeks I think we could miss a meal or two with no caloric loss. We'll be docking in Langkowi by noon, so I'm hoping to get a chapter of Spanish homework in before.We're a little late docking but still met our guide and driver on time at one thirty. Sham our guide and Zeke our driver both spoke and understood english well. Our first stop was a cable car ride to the very top of the highest local peak. The views were spectacular but the ride up and down was a little dicey.  The two guys across from us in our gondola looked at their shoes all the way up. They were from Syria and know terror firsthand, but the ride made them wish they were back on the frontline. The closer be got to the top the steeper the slope until we were climbing vertically. Then the gondola sped up and shook violently as it hit the top. We all got off thinking that was the end of the trauma.But the only way the get down was to go to the final level. It was so bad that even Karen was a little shook. Toni on the other hand wasn't worried at all.She had opted to stay in the parking lot with the bus driver playing with Google Earth. Our next stop was for a leisurely swim. The beach was beautiful and the water was warm and calm. Just what we needed to salve our jangled nerves. This is only a half day tour so we did some sightseeing from the van on the way back to the ship.Sham said that we were lucky to have missed Chinese New Year which fills most of January and February. The whole island is full during at that time. May through August is high season for the Middle East. This is the peak of the rainy season, but since they live in the desert a little rain is a luxury. Sort of like Floridians going skiing to experience the wonders of snow.Tonight is BBQ night. We will be having dinner with Paul and Terry Samman from northern Indiana, and a couple they met on an earlier cruise, Mike and Pamela           What a great experience. The food and music were terrific and since we sat on the second pool level, we had a great breeze. Terry and Paul are a delightful couple. He recently sold his reading glass company but is still somewhat involved in management. They have been on Silver Seas for over six hundred days over the last few years. Mike and Pamela are from Great Britain and live southeast of London. Mike is an architect. Not just any architect but the one who designed and built the Burge Al Arab in Dubai, a building that is as famous as the Sidney Opera house. That was the goal of Sheik Mohammed  when he assigned Mike's company the task. Mike showed us the basic design structure drawing with seven lines and then did the opera house with seven also.

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Needless to say we had very interesting conversations. Paul and Terry own a Beech King air and love to hang out in Key West. There was a lot of fishing and KW stories last night. He told us about an out of the way restaurant called Marquesa. We had eaten there  last September with brother Jack and Ike!After a great BBQ and fantastic music including a poolside conga line, it was time for bed.But what surprise when we got back to the room. It was decorated with balloons, candles and blinky  lights with yet another birthday cake!Karen was at it again.  The  room was all fixed up by our butler and his helpers.There was a birthday card from John and Karen and another from the Captain. As tired as we were we hunted them down and had yet another birthday nightcap. NOW it's time for bed.

Tuesday February 25,2014this will be another full day. We docked in Penang, the capital of Penang state in Malaysia at eight. We absorbed at quick breakfast and still met our guide Lim and driver Ranjeet on time. We will start the morning at one of the piers or jetties that were built when the Chinese first migrated to Penang. There was little available land to house the immigrants so the clans built jetties over the bay to house the new comers. We walked the Choo jetty to see how the people live. There is a Taoist shrine on the entrance to the jetty, and another one at the end. There are usually three generations living in each home. The grandparents take care of the youngsters while the second generation works. Our next stop was at the Choo clan house. This is a temple and meeting place for this clan. There are many clans in the city that support clan houses but this is the wealthiest and most elaborate one. We drove through town to the spice garden, but made a mandatory stop to see the  Colonel's  mansion. This would be Colonel Sanders of KFC fame who took over an old plantation house for his first restaurant in Penang. Of course Ronald has several stores here, but the Colonel's is the most impressive. Unfortunately I left my $70 KFC gift card given to me by John and Karen Reeves at home.The spice garden was an interesting walk through a hillside jungle. We were aware of most of the plants and spices but not of their medicinal values. We bought a few trinkets at the always present gift shop, and the headed for lunch. Lim wanted to take us to a restaurant that served western food but we all said we wanted local. She directed us to a very nice beachfront hotel with a local flavored menu. After another good lunch we went to a very large and impressive hillside shrine. I think the word

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shrine doesn't do justice to this structure. The Kek Lok Si Temple is the largest Buddhist temple in SE Asia.Construction began in 1890 and houses the seven story handcrafted "Pagoda of ten thousand Buddhas". There is also a ninety foot bronze statueof Kuan Yin , the goddess of good health. The Buddhist monks had been chanting all day and the day before. It added a mystical sound to the already mystical setting.  One of the blessings of a small van tour was that the driver could drive right to the top of the structure to pick us up. It made for a nice finish to a long day of touring.Tonight we had dinner with Herb and Brenda Putz from British Columbia. He is a former engineering professor the now runs a division of a two thousand employee engineering firm based in Spain. After dinner we made it in time to hear the next to the last performance by the Silver Seas entertainers, and now to bed.We are four degrees ten minutes north latitude and one hundred degrees twenty two minutes east longitude. We will anchor in Melaka by noon tomorrow.

Wednesday February 26,2014We are in the Straits of Melaka, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.There are more freighters in this body of water than anywhere else on this trip. This narrow body also creates great tidal flows and is fairly rough. It will be interesting to see if the tenders can work safely here as there is no pier. Toni and I decide to stay on the boat and get packed. We need a day of rest. John and Karen went ashore and walked through the town of Melaka, and reconfirmed our decision to stay aboard. Our ship will only be here for five hours so this is not a high interest destination. The closing party featured the Silver Seas singers and the presentation of the whole crew. It was a very nice way to end this cruise. We had dinner with Neville and Christine Day, and called it a night early. Tomorrow we leave the ship but will spend two days in Singapore.

Thursday February 27, 2014We are up at six and our bags have already been picked up.  We checked the room to make sure we have everything. we will have a late breakfast with John and Karen before meeting our guide at ten for an all day tour of Singapore. It is very hot today. We  are only one degree above the equator so of course it's hot! We toured a couple of down town locations before spending over an hour in the arboretum. Which was hot and humid. After a tour of little India it was finally time to go check in at Raffles, our hotel for the next two days. We were met by the assistant GM who announced that he

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had upgraded our suites but they wouldn't be ready for a few minutes. He would like to serve us complimentary Singapore Slings while we waited. Now this is service. Soon afterward the General Manager, Simon Hirst arrived to welcome us and offered afternoon tea for us, and to apologize for the delay. I think traveling with Mr. and Mrs. Upchurch, the surname of the CEO of Virtuoso, certainly has its rewards. After signing for a $175 bill for the tea service, Mrs. Upchurch was informed that the fee was waived and that our suites were now ready. Now this is really service! The suites are very large and spacious so I guess the slight delay was worth the wait.We had a drink in The Long Bar, voted one of the best bars in the world. My $25 Guinness Draft proved it is at least one of the five most expensive bars in the world. Dinner at the Bar and Billiard room was a sea food feast. Afterward, it's time for bed. I would like to spend some time exploring the charm, history and opulence of Raffles, but possibly when I'm not so tired.  Tomorrow is our last day in Singapore, so we need to rest now.

Friday February 28,2014This being our last day in this fantastic town, we will catch a hop on-hop off bus and tour ourselves around town. We have a map and a plan! We pick up the bus across the street from the hotel and tour China town and the very impressive business district. It's plenty hot so Toni and I stay downstairs on the double decker, and John and  Karen head to the second level. The first part of the tour stops near the giant Ferris wheel, so we hop off for a tour of the sky. The wheel offers a spectacular view of the city and also the port. There are hundreds of ship waiting to load and unload. Singapore is a huge in transit port. This is considered a break bulk port, so many ships dock here to transship smaller quantities of their loads to different ports. This is where Singapore gets a lot of its revenue. The views of the city change as the wheel goes around. The floating soccer field and its landlocked bleachers are followed by the lotus blossom shaped museum. The are several views of the Marina complex including the three skyscrapers with a cruise ship shaped viewing area on top. More on this later. The wheel takes forty minutes to complete a loop so we had plenty of time to pick our next several stops.We hop back on the bus and stop at the marina complex which includes a huge shopping mall, the lotus shaped museum and the three skyscraper hotel with the  boat on top. We walked the mall for awhile and then toured the museum. This is a museum of the art of science. The had a very large touring exhibition of dinosaurs. A lot of them came from north western Argentina. We had no idea that dinosaurs ever lived in

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South America. We walked back through the mall in order to find the elevators to the top of the hotel. The viewing area is in the shape of a ship with a huge pool in the stern with an infinity edge to view the whole city. The pointy end is a bar and another large viewing area all decked out with palm trees. We wanted to eat lunch but the restaurant wasn't serving until six, so we had a drink, and took a lot of pictures before heading back to the bus. Next stop the bar at the Fullerton Bay Hotel where we also couldn't get anything to eat. We walked a promenade with several restaurants andsettled on a seafood place. After we finished dinner the waiter told us that the harbour light show would start in a few minutes. We didn't have long to wait until the fantastic laser show started. We sat mesmerized through the fifteen minute show. Now we need to find a taxi back to the hotel. We didn't wait long but our driver explained that on Friday night most of the Muslim drivers go to the mosque so we were lucky to find a ride so quickly. Home at the Raffles at last. We have a very early flight home tomorrow so we arranged a two AM wake up and a three AM taxi. Now for a short rest before we start the long slog home.

Saturday march 1,2014Sleep was almost impossible while we worried about waking up on time and packing. But the two AM wake up call came quickly. We were whisked to the airport in very light traffic, and with priority boarding and a light load we are headed for Tokyo's Narita airport ahead of schedule.  It's now nearly ten AM in Singapore time and we are 984 miles from Tokyo, 27 degrees North latitude and 128 degrees east longitude. At 626 MPH we have another hour and a half to go on this leg of 3329 miles. We clear customs with our carry on luggage and part company with John and Karen. They are on a flight to Atlanta but we will meet them again in Orlando for the final leg of this trip.We have a quick turnaround and are boarding our plane to JFK in less than an hour. We are now over the pacific on the polar route to New York. We'll be there in twelve hours if the tail wind holds up. We are 35 degrees north latitude and 142 degrees east longitude. Sometime this afternoon we will cross the international date line and get our day back. We will also be measuring by west longitude. Our route will take us along the northeastern coast of Japan and over Russia's Kamchatka  Peninsula before turning further northeast across the Aleutian Islands and Alaska before dropping down through northwestern Canada and eventually southeast to New York.  We have now been traveling for over twelve hours.

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We've been traveling for nearly sixteen hours. The longitude keeps climbing. Now at 161 degrees east. When we reach 180 east we will be at the date line and will then start are gradual decline from 180 degrees west. We will also regain our lost day. We are 50 degrees 7 minutes north latitude over the southern tip of Russia's Kamchatka peninsula and approaching the Aleutian Islands. We will cross the dateline before we reach mainland Alaska.We are seven hours and forty minutes from our destination as we cross the international dateline. Now 179 degrees 49 minutes WEST! 55 degrees 50 minutes north.  We have 4482 miles to go until we reach JFK.  we are still heading ENE, and are over the Bering Sea. We've lightened our fuel load enough to climb to 33,000 feet but our tail wind has dropped to 34 MPH.It's time for a nap.And what a nap it was. When I awoke we were only forty four minutes out of JFK.Latitude 42 degrees N latitude and longitude 80degreesW.  We will be on the ground in forty five minutes.We still don't have a clue what the local time is but we have been traveling for over twenty four hours. Napping on the flight helps some but we are still bone tired and have to haul our luggage through customs and immigration in New York before catching our Orlando flight. When this flight terminates we'll have another sixty eight hundred miles completed. Global Entry and pre-check worked fine and we are now waiting for the last leg to Orlando. Our flight leaves in  two hours, so we will cool our heals in the crappiest Sky Lounge that I've ever seen. Maybe I'm just a little tired. I did make contact with David and he is already in Orlando waiting for us.It's almost three here in NYC. We will board for Orlando in ten minutes.  On board and ready for pushback. Ready to be home in our beds actually.  There is still a scattering of snow off the side of the runways, and a chill breeze but we are heading south. We nodded off for most of the trip to Orlando. But we met John and Karen, recovered all of our luggage and met David Jr. for the last part of he journey. We are home safely by nine o'clock March 1st.

This truly was a momentous journey. The ancient cities and temples, and the variety of cultures each with a different language and alphabet made this a learning experience of high value. We visited seven countries with dramatically different cultures and economies. The religious practices for the most part surrounded them in all of their life dealings. The Muslims pray five times a day. The Buddhists, Taoists, and even Hindus and  Sikhs  have similar lifestyles that begin their days with feeding

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the monks and the poor. For the Hindus it also includes feeding the sacred cows. They are very productive and extremely hardworking for the most part, and tend to look down on the beggars and unproductive parts of their societies.Is was also a trip back in time as some of the temples are over 2500 years old. Many of the ways of life, especially in the rural areas have also been unchanged in centuries.

Now it's time to plan the next adventure.

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David Perryman, Captain Mike, mate David Cunningham from Crooked Island and David Slick

Wednesday April 2,2014The alarm wakes me from a sound sleep at four AM. let the adventure begin.We packed the car and will meet John Reeves at the foot of the Granada bridge. John offered to drop David Perryman and me at the airport. The first, and hopefully only

DAYTONA TO HOUMA, LOUISIANA TO PICK UP THE SEA HUNTER AND RETURN IT TO PALM BEACH

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April 2,2014 to April 7th 2014

trauma of the day, David's alarm didn't function properly. Something about PM in-stead of AM. We had to hustle a little but still made it to the airport on time. The pre check feature has now come to small airports such as Daytona Beach, so we no longer have to remove our coats and shoes. Now that's progress! With an on time push back and clear skies, we'll be in Atlanta early with fifty minutes to catch the flight to New Or-leans. Piece of cake!The Sea Hunter has had a lot of upgrades. The bottom was scraped and repainted and the hull was redone also. The bathrooms were renovated and the black water tanks re-moved and replaced. The gasoline tank was also expanded.  These are just a few of the upgrades to an already capable ship.We are out of Atlanta on time. We'll be in New Orleans by eight thirty central time.  The flight landed without incident, and my bag showed up as scheduled.We had contemplated renting a car but a taxi turned out to be a less expensive option since we were taking a one way trip. A couple of phone calls to captain Mike and we re-alized that there was a lot more to finish on the boat so we would be in Houma for at least another day. When we arrived at the boat yard the Sea Hunter looked even larger than I remembered it as it sat high and dry on the ways. We met Randall the owner of the yard and one of the hardest workers.  We will probably leave tomorrow afternoon. Key word, probably.David and I spent the day traveling from Graingers to West Marine to several local tackle shops and marine maintenance facilities shopping for boat parts.Most of them were unavailable. But we did get enough to keep the boys at the yard working until eight PM.David and I had a late dinner at Big Al's Seafood Restaurant, and then crashed at the nearby Ramada. Tomorrow is sure to bring more surprises.

Thursday April 3,2014We are up early since there is an hour time difference. We had breakfast at the hotel before heading back to the boat yard. David and I started at Lowes to buy supplies be-fore we went to the super market to provision for the trip. The  plan for today was to launch the boat early and then be ready to leave by one. I feel as though I'm in the Ba-hamas because times keep changing. We went to several stores to get miscellaneous supplies and to waste time until the boat was back in the water. I originally asked David if we could be back for the launch because I wanted to film it. But when I heard that it takes forty five minutes to float the ship, the motivation was gone. We shopped

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until ten and when we returned to the boat it was obvious the we weren't leaving to-day.I climbed up the rickety ladder and started helping the crew to clean and organize so that we could speed up the process. This was a daunting task, but we kept moving so we could  maybe impact our departure. David spent the afternoon chasing down the last pieces and parts for the boat and grocery shopping for the return trip. By seven o'clock Randall started removing all of the scaffolding around the boat. This is a posi-tive sign that we are getting ready to splash. By eight The Sea Hunter is floating again!Everyone in the yard was happy to see the boat back in the water. Captain Lance owns the boat next to us brought us sixty pounds of shrimp as a going away gift. Lance showed us lots of photos of huge catches of shrimp. One ten hour drag produced seven thousand pounds of shrimp with very little by catch. The price now is almost three dol-lars a pound because there is a blight in the S E Asia shrimp ponds. The local shrim-pers are having a very good year. He also showed a boat full of gators, some over ten foot long. In Louisiana if you own 2500 acres you are allowed to harvest up to fifty five gators a year.  Randall showed up with a roll of carpet and the carpet installer, Jere-miah. This was a gift from Randall and his wife. Jeremiah worked until eight and then left to coach his little league team. He was back an hour later to finish the job. He said that night baseball can be a real problem because of the Mosquitos and No Seeums. The ballpark is right next to the swamp. So much for living on the bayou. We are in Terrebonne Parish in the town of Chavon, just down the road from Houma. By nine o'clock we are all tired and as organized as we will be tonight. David, the Bahamian crew member finished one bathroom and a shower before going to bed so I'll be ready for tomorrow.  Now it's time to sleep.

Friday April 4,2014We are up before seven and starting the preparation for departure. We need to return the rental car, and finish some last minute jobs such as reattaching the anchors and putting up all of the communication and navigation antennas.Jeremiah is finishing the last details on the stairway carpeting, and Bahamian David is securing the propane tanks. By eleven we are ready to head south.We said our goodbyes to Randall and the rest of the yard crew. Russell the painter came by to tell me how much he had enjoyed our conversation on Wednesday night. He is an outdoorsman. He works works ten or twelve hours in the yard and then goes home to wrk in the yard and clean up after his chickens. He and his wife are also adopt-ing their two grandchildren.  His daughter has drug and alcohol problems. He is. Guy

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that is happy with his job and his station in life. By noon we pull the lines and head south down the bayou.The canal is narrow with houses on both sides. Nearly everyone of them has a shrimp boat tied up out front. With the price of shrimp hovering near $3/pound all of the shrimpers are happy.  We stopped for fuel in Chauvinfor fuel. David negotiated a discount for fuel. He wanted more than five thousand gal-lons, but that was all they had! That is less than a third of the capacity of the Sea Hunter. It took over an hour and a half to pump the fuel.We had time for one more stop at Piggly Wiggly for sold drinks jelly  and honey.NOW we he enough for five days of steaming. If you consider the fuel maybe five months. We continued on down the bayou for several more hours and hit the ship channel at dusk. We followed the channel markers until after dark and then switched to radar and GPS. With the radar on a twelve mile range we can see hundreds go oil rigs! The gulf off of Louisiana is covered with rigs. The impact on the local economy is huge. All of the well service companies including supply ships, helicopters to deliver crews and emergency parts along withAll of the service companies, from surveyors to lawyers are all part of the oil economy.With the help of radar and GPS we dodge the towers most of the night. Before we left the yard I met Henry, the twenty four year old captain of one of Lance's shrimp boats. He is very proud of being a shrimp boat captain at such a young age. As we talked it was obvious that he has found his life's work. The clincher is the large tattoo of a shrimp on the back of his hand.We will be steaming southeast all night and hope to fish one of the rigs early tomorrow morning. This is a surreal trip at night. With the radar and GPS as our connection to reality. David and I are taking this watch. It's after ten as we stare at the radar and check our progress on the  GPS as we listen to the weather and bob and roll in a moder-ate sea. We see a rig ahead three miles.It looks close on the scope but at our current speed it will take us half an hour to get there. Plenty of time for a course correction if needed. And on we go into the night.The haunting whistle buoys can be heard from several different points.  As though they are calling to each other like giant night birds. The massive oil rigs are lit up like neon signs and are awe inspiring as we pass them in the dark of night. We kept our watch until two in the morning when Mike took over. Now it's time to try to sleep.

Saturday April 5,2014

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I woke up at five thirty this morning the first time.  Next was seven thirty so I show-ered and went to the helm station to relieve Mike and Bahamian David.We are going to fish one of the oil platforms this morning. Yesterday we riggedFour new shimano TLDs with thirty pound test line and equips them for trolling and jigging near the platforms. We started trolling a few miles before and are now con-vinced that Paul Scott's socks are somewhere on this vessel. The first three fish we caught were barracuda. However the next one Mike caught a very large wahoo, that was gaffed and now is in the cooler. The estimates from this professional crew range from seventy five to over one hundred pounds.I'm sure they are much more accurate than some lousy certified  weigh scale.So far I haven't heard of anyone suggesting that we find a scale. So far the wahoo is the only fish on ice.We've passed hundreds of rigs in the last twenty four hours with many more on the ra-dar right now. We will continue trolling on this heading until seven tonight when we will stop at another platform for some yellowfin tuna fishing.Around four thirty we are surrounded by hundreds of porpoise. They are swimming and leapingin groups of twenty or thirty and heading towards the boat at a high rate  of speed to play in our bow wake. We took video of herds of them leaping out of the water as they came towards the boat. We watched them and filmed the for twenty minutes. What an experience!We are still heading toward another platform and will get there around dusk to fish for yellowfin tuna. We arrived at the platform, the last one for at least the next forty miles on our route, at quarter after seven. As we trolled around the structure we were again reminded to look for Paul Scott's hidden socks somewhere on the Sea Hunter. We caught not one but three more barracudas.We finally decided to spent the last few minutes of daylight deep jigging for tuna. Mike was top rod with one black fin tuna. We called it a night and started back on course to Florida. Mike had to do a little maintenance on the port packing box and by quarter till eight we were back on course for Florida Bay.We will be steaming for two and a half days to the seven mile bridge in Marathon. There we will head offshore to pick up the Gulf Stream for our final leg to Palm Beach. I have the nine to one watch tonight. My alarm didn't go off so I ended up with the two to six AM watch.

Sunday April 6,2014

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At six this morning Mike relieved me and I got a few hours sleep. A little breakfast at ten and then back on the bridge. Last night was an experience being alone on the bridge. I watched a few ships as they passed  by, most at a distance of four to six miles. By three o'clock the radar was empty for the next twenty four miles. Monitoring the course on the GPS and keeping an eye on the radar and engine gauges was all of the ac-tivity I had. I would go out on deck in the chilly air every half hour to keep alert and awake. At one point I saw a light that wasn't on the scope. It made me nervous until I realized that it was a star. By six I was ready for some sleep.We put two trolling lines out around noon and trolled until five without a knockdown. We used the last ballyhoo and used a lure on the other rod. But at three I found a fly-ing fish on the deck and rigged that for trolling. I hope we find some more tonight. My watch tonight is eight to eleven, so we will have an early dinner. Black beans and rice, corn and baked chicken.  Yum!An hour nap before my eight to eleven watch and I'm ready to go. We are 248 nautical miles from our mark in Florida Bay. We are zooming along at eight knots. That's 192 NM in twenty four hours. By nine o'clock tomorrow night we will be fifty NM from our mark.

Monday April 7,2014Up at six with heavier seas. It went from six to eight feet, to ten to twelve during the night. We have slowed down a little bit but still averaging seven knots or so. I found four flying fish on the deck this morning so we have fresh trolling bait again. My watch this morning is from eight to eleven. We are 166 NM from our mark. The watch is over quickly with no other boats sighted. The only excitement was listening to the Coast Guard. There was a grounding in the Mobile ship channel, and a boat taking on water. We couldn't hear the position of that one.  There was also another distress call from a boat that had a lot of people aboard and no food and little water. There was also a re-port on a surf sailer who was trying to get to the US from Cuba. I hope he makes it. One of the most inhumane policies of our country is to interdict Cubans that are risk-ing their lives to get to freedom. If the  Coast Guard catches them before they get a foot on our soil, they send them back to Cuba.I rigged the two flying fish for trolling and then promptly fell asleep. That's not a safe thing to do with this crew. I awoke with people yelling that I had a fish on.I grabbed the reel and unfortunately got the line also. It burnt my palm quickly as I nearly dropped the reel. I was trying to reel unsuccessfully when Mike felt sorry for me and told me about the bucket. Yes, they got me with the old bucket trick. As I slept

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peacefully Mike tied a bucket on the end of the line. It fought like a big barracuda. I managed to lose it at the transom. Too bad, I was going to have it mounted. So far three days of trolling and all we have to show for it is one white five gallon bucket, that was sport released at the boat.We are now only one hundred miles from our mark in Florida bay. Everyone is getting excited about getting to Palm Beach. By the end of my eight to eleven watch we should have fifty miles to go.Dinner tonight is fresh tuna and Cajun dirty rice. Lunch today was hotdogs.There were eight buns but only seven dogs in a pack. Go figure.At seven o'clock Mike spotted a buoy about seventy miles north of Key West. It was just a little off our course so we will stop there for another shot at fishing.  We chopped up some sardines for cut bait and I found two more ballyhoo in the cooler. We rigged them and started trolling about half a mile before the buoy. As we ap-proached it we had our first knock down in three days. The was not a barracuda. How-ever it was a amberjack. We are snake bit. We chummed the buoy heavily as we passed it and then came back to bottom jig for red snapper.  The first fish aboard was a flag yellowtail snapper. We were hoping for a cooler full but our luck held and that was the only one we caught. After an hour we went back on course. We are ten hours from our mark. Sometime around sunrise we will also have cell coverage for the first time since last Friday.I will take the eleven to two watch tonight. At one thirty we are forty miles north west of Key West, and forty nine miles from our mark. We just passed a buoy that was two miles due south of our position. Other than that it has been an issue free watch.  A-sleep by two thirty.

Tuesday April 7,2014Up at seven. My watch starts again at eight. We are just a few miles north of the seven mile bridge. We are on course and on time. David P. predicted several days ago that we would be at our mark by eight and we were just a few minutes early. We will pick up the Gulf Stream in less than an hour. We are steaming at seven knots now. It will be interesting to see how much speed we will pick up when we get in the stream. Un-der the bridge at eight forty five. The weather Is very windy and the Gulf Stream has moved offshore nearly twenty miles so we will stay inside the reef for as long as we can. It's an interesting view of areas know well. We passed Bud and  Mary's and the Breezy Palm. We are now north of Tavernier and now have the wind at our back.  New estimate is PB between one and three AM tonight.

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Our last dinner on board will be fresh wahoo and an Alfredo pasta. Yum!My watch tonight is eight to eleven. We are still south of Miami at seven thirty.New ETA five AM. we are dodging storms from a cold front. I should say the storms are dodging us. We look forward to a fresh water wash down as long as the wind gusts are a lot less than the forecasted forty knots. But so far the storms have all passed in front of us. All of the storms passed us by. We did get a very light drizzle but not enough to knock off all of the salt.Once we passed Miami and its ocean traffic our next challenge was Port Everglades at Fort Lauderdale. Once we cleaned the inbound and outbound traffic, from cruise ships to container ships, it was smooth steaming with light traffic. The rest of the trip was non-eventful. We entered Rybovich Marina at four fifteen and we were tied up with shore power by five. From cast off from the yard in Chauvin, Louisiana to the dock at Rybovich, one hundred and thirty eight hours.This was a terrific life experience with a very capable and compatible crew.I'd do it again, but probably not tomorrow. Barbara Perryman will bring David's car down sometime this morning to he has transportation while the crew and various subs get the boat ready for. The trip to andros and then on down to Crooked Island. We will see the crew and ship again the first week in June.

Now to start planning our next adventure.

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Thank you Jayne for the introduction and for inviting me to speak tonight.

After viewing  my  predecessors, Mark Andrews and Mike Read's remarks  I knew there is a high standard set for this leadership speaker series.

My story is a history of an inadvertent entrepreneur and  is different from the last two speakers but our problems and solutions are similar. Business is business.

VMA PRESENTATION

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May 15,2014

Command Medical Products is a local manufacturer of disposable medical products. We are a CMO, a contract manufacturing organization. That means that we do not manufacture products under our own brand, but service our customers by building their branded products. Some of our customers require fully branded and sterilized products and for others maybe just a component that will be included with their com-pleted product. Our customer base includes nine of the fifteen largest medical device companies in the world. We are an ISO registered company and are also monitored by the FDA. Both of those organizations require a great deal of professionalism and record keeping as do our cus-tomers. Nearly all of our products are single use disposable. Much of what we do involves chemo delivery and insulin delivery systems. Our niche is fluid delivery, fluid collec-tion and storage. This includes various tubing sets and bags to store blood and other things that I'll not mention as this is an after dinner speaking engagement. We are an independent company based here in Volusia County. We have a approxi-mately one hundred employees here and another seventy in Managua Nicaragua. We are a strong local company that is growing and has a very professional operating staff. Our budgeted growth this year forecasts a double digit revenue increase and through the first four months we are exceeding our targets by over 25%. It may sound like bragging but I wanted to set the picture of where we are before let-ting you all know where we came from.

In 1974 a good friend invited me to tour his new manufacturing plant. It was a revela-tion and I immediately fell in love with manufacturing. The shear creative joy of taking an idea and converting it from concept to a finished product was a revelation for me. After a few Saturday sessions and an idea that became a product he offered me a job. I had a job selling business computers and with four little kids, I was somewhat con-cerned about jumping into a new company. But my wife Toni and I discussed it and her comment was, "give it a try, you can always go back to what you are doing now." With that encouragement I made the jump. In a small company everyone performs and wears many hats. And there is no place for a non performer to hide. We worked week days and week ends for a few years and even though the revenue was growing, we were losing money. After four years my friend ran out of money and confidence in the venture. He told me he had had enough and was going to sell the enterprise. He re-ceived no viable offers. I on the

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other hand  was very concerned about how I would feed my family and the potential shame of being involved in a losing venture. So I went to my friend with a proposal. I would buy his stock for $1/share and i would take over the liabilities. There were 300 shares outstanding. After no hesitation he ac-cepted. But with four small children but a very supportive wife we didn't have any ex-cess money. However there was $300 in the petty cash box. I did think hard about the ethical is-sues, but decided that I could always pay the petty cash box back. So with my new found wealth, I bought the stock, took over a machinery lease that was over six months passed due, a stack of payables and a loyal but very small cus-tomer base.  Now a lot of moments in life turn on timing and luck. There was a new banker in town whose charge was to get loans. The words good or well-backed were not in his charge, luckily. So over the course of a few weeks we managed to get long term equipment financing with reasonable terms and a $250,000 line of credit and a $50,000 unsecured infu-sion of cash. The wait was interminable because if the bank couldn't agree on all that we needed, I had just paid $300 for a bankrupt company. My total debt up to this time was our $25,000 home mortgage. I remember sitting in my office after hanging up with the bank, and looking at the blank wall in front of me. There was no one else in the building so I took a long breath, and said out loud, "now all we have to do is perform!"The next few months were very exciting. We were moving forward but we were in exis-tence mode every day, not for weeks or months, but for years. By 1984 we had made the INC. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held compa-nies in the USA. and were were still in existence mode. But fear is a great motivator. In the next ten years we made many forays into other areas and markets most of them ending in less than stellar success. We bought a competitor in Long Island to be close to some of our major customers. It was like jumping into quicksand. During this pe-riod we continued growing but we were marginally profitable. we had sold our Ohio company. we started manufacturing in Ormond Beach in 1987as Command Medical, focusing totally on disposable medical devices.  We have worked diligently for the last twenty five years at focusing on our core compe-tences and our only market, disposable medical devices. As I mentioned in my intro-duction we have built a solid and professional organization with a fantastic manage-ment group that is capable, experienced and competent to help us get to the next level.

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What have we learned along the way?

1. Planning and budgeting, revenue and expense.

We have developed revenue and expense budgets annually since we have been operat-ing.  We have always done a pretty good job of building and controlling expense budg-ets, but it has taken years to be able to forecast reasonably accurate revenues. I can say from a lot of experience that missing revenue and not adjusting expenses is a very frus-trating way to manage and can be disastrous. When each department has a say in de-veloping their budgets they have a greater chance of meeting them. We originally re-viewed the company's performance to budget quarterly, but now do it monthly. We also meet weekly on our monthly revenue plan looking at the current month and the next two in great detail. Our revenue plan for each month is set weeks ahead of time and all elements of pro-duction, machinery, materials, manpower are assessed to make sure we can meet or exceed the plan. We have several daily meetings as necessary to make sure we can react to any revenue issues.

2.Keep a very close eye on cash flow.

Cash or debt makes a company move forward. Debt can be expensive and may have many strings attached. Monitor and watch it daily. Even if you are a small start up and don't have the luxury of a controller, make it your responsibility to know what your payables, including payroll are and when they are due. If you can pay on time you be-come a much more attractive customer to your creditors. And if you have a good pay-ment record and fall on tough times, you are more likely to be able to arrange longer terms if necessary. In these instances make sure you are communicating with your creditors and make sure you tell them the truth. No BS.  know your receivables, and don't be afraid to contact late payers. You have to have money to operate and most of the time the squeaky wheel gets greased. Gentle diplomatic nudging at first, but con-stant pressure until you get paid. In tough times we only paid those people that complained. So don't be afraid to make the calls. You have a right to be morally indignant. If you can't get paid on time with certain accounts, then raise their prices to cover the cost of money.

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Their terms, your price!

3. You can't control what you don't measure.

Our expendable assets, labor, material and machine time are all that we have to make a profitable product. We develop long histories on the products that we run often, and measure each element of a process. We can then use those historic labor elements to quote future projects that would require like processes. We measure scrap,  downtime, training, and anything else that isexpended to complete a product. The data we gather helps set priorities for everything from equipment repair or replace to employee training and tooling improvements.

4. Accuracy in all measurements of company activity is crucial.

The bigger we get the faster we move. This momentum is terrific, and we use a lot of past data to make decisions about future projects. Some of the opportunities are very large and there is a lot of competition for them. A minor mistake in quoting can lead to an large and unprofitable commitment on our part. Those mistakes are not easily corrected because our customers aren't interested in helping to cure our mistakes. We could be forced to produce products with a marginal or negative return for years. ACCURACY IN DATA COLLECTION IS A CRITICAL ISSUE!

5. Culture trumps strategy every time

All employees are part of the clan, and they need to feel that way. How do you do this? COMMUNICATE,  COMMUNICATE! Did I mention communicate?All members of organization need to know what is going on, both the good and the bad. We have a full company meeting every month for a half hour. We begin every meeting with a discussion on safety and W/Comp. We tell everyone at the same time what is go-ing on in the company so that everyone hears the same news. We explain where we are to budget. We introduce any new employees whether they are entry level, techs, or de-partment managers. We also go over any pertinent issues that we are dealing with. These issues change on a monthly basis. If we have an issue with attendance we reemphasize our attendance

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policy. We always have food at these meetings and we try to end on a positive note. We also take questions and comments from all, and follow up on what ever issue is dis-cussed. We always follow up on issues or suggestions. Even if it is an unworkable idea, we let everyone know in as diplomatic a way as we can why it won't fit in our plans.  The important part is that we make a concerted effort to let everyone know that they are part of the clan and that their concerns and suggestions are taken seriously.

6. Training - investments in our employees.

We encourage our employees to take courses that will make their jobs easier and help them to keep up with all of the changing regulations that effect their jobs and the com-pany's well being. We also have an internal program that values longevity and corporate knowledge. The program rewards employees with higher hourly wages as they learn additional jobs and also pass knowledge tests relating to our industry,the FDA and  ISO. Another pragmatic part of this program is the positive impact on retention.

7. Look as far into the future as you can.

With the help of Mark Andrews we are working our way through a transition to a fully functional strategic planning organization. This process aligns all organization func-tions with our long and short term goals. It is not a process as much as way to operate our business with a long look into the future. We start with some very basic information about our core values. These are forever val-ues and should set the tone for hiring, and our relationship with our employees, our customers and the communities that we live in. They are simple statements that will drive all of our actions. 1. We are accountable to our Employees (well being), to our share holders,(profitabil-ity ), and to our community, (stewardship). 2. We will lead with integrity, honesty, and respect. 3. We are committed to operational excellence company wide.

8. The is one more. Balance in life. Our company must be profitable to assure long term security for our employees, but there must be consideration given to

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the balance between family, a professional career, and enjoying the time we are allot-ted on this earth.

In closing, I'd like to thank Jayne, the heart and soul of VMA for inviting me to speak tonight, and my predecessors,  Mike Read and Mark Andrews for setting the tone, and for all of you patient listeners.

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