Hey, still alive here in Panama.

I went through the canal yesterday with some friends on a class 40 race boat! Great experience, with great people, and they somehow tickled me about this blog, dormant for a few months (I was busy working on the boat, my usual excuse).

There are still lots of topics I'd like to talk about, and after my last blog (I had one friend saying; "Stop this Olivier, believe in life and mankind's ability to sort things out"), I suppose it wouldn't hurt to go on a different tack and just focus on a given topic that either pisses me off or makes me wonder.

(It doesn't mean I am more optimistics about the issues related to population growth...)

By the way, the crew on this class 40 are man (professional racer with heaps of experience), wife (former journalist who went to Africa for years to report on slums and other hard topics), and 2 great kids aged 7 and 3.
They built their boat in a very interesting "social" context (see their website), forgo income to help worthy causes ("no child labor" is one), and have started a round the world trip with very little money on a very demanding boat (a race boat has none of the luxuries most circumnavigators consider "normal"). They made me think about some of the stress I am taking on to fix stuff on my boat - stuff they don't have and never will have. They also made me think about the difference between ranting and raving and just doing, with the humility of not trying to change the world, but just living with strong convictions and an open heart.

Thanks Ben and Anne Mai (and Isis and Miles) for the breath of fresh and clean air! (by the way, their website, somewhat inactive lately is: www.nacira-40.com  I highly recommend it, and if you feel like going on a cruise with a REAL racer on a real racing boat, this would be the one to chose! You will learn a shitload, will enjoy the conversation and laugh your balls off at some of the stories and the humour...

So, anyway, my future blogs will be longer ( I re-read my past ones, and even with my attempts at staying short but dense, I feel the points are not getting across properly), more focused, and will come more from the amazing encounters I make on this 'round the world trip.

I will talk about Miguel, the 70+ year old Spaniard who lost his second boat in Port Elisabeth, South Africa (he lost his first one in Cuba), who has no money, except what he makes from selling puppets - and he's done that for 25 years! - and did his sea trials on the newly acquired beat up boat from South Africa to Brazil, all without papers, convincing the "official" in Brazil that the storm blew all his papers away...

I will talk about this Frenchman who was accused of murder in St Lucia, and is probably still in jail, although there is very good evidence that he never killed the guy.

Or the japanese single hander who managed to convince his wife, by washing up dishes for years, that she should let him go on a world cruise for 2 years (but NO MORE).

Hunting in South Africa. Yeah, HUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA. Another topic that needs clarifying, so the usual politicaly correct bullshit gets sorted. I did hunt in South Africa. It changed my mind. I was educated, and I loved it.

Ariane rocket launch in French Guyana. Another great experience, and another source of thoughts...

And then there's T & T (I will not give their full name), a Dutch-American couple, who made us laugh and worry for the better part of a year with their antiques, running aground, breaking stuff,  sailing to a different island from the planned one, without realizing... They are worth a book on their own.

Anyway, future blogs will change for theoretical ravings to experience learnt, and some thoughts deriving from that.

Another major change in this blog. Will I get it right this time?

Comments, as usual, are welcome.