One thing which doesn't interrupt my thoughts, as I stand in meditation on the foredeck, is the quacking and whistling of waterbirds - and that's because there are surprisingly few in this vicinity. The Rio Luján and our quiet little creek are very polluted. Having passed through hundreds of miles of farmland and through cities with every form of industry from leather tanning to nuclear power generation, the river is choked with heavy metals and poly-poisons and also with an…
Life alongside the riverbank allows us an entirely different perspective on Mother Nature, for whereas at sea we are surrounded by her majesty but catch only glimpses of our fellow beings, here, amongst the trees, everything is much more cosy and the environment is thronged with life. When we visited this creek in the summer the trees were alive with insects, many of whom were as sociable as their compatriot, two-legged Argentinians. Wasps of various kinds came aboard and made…
The Argentinians are very friendly people. For example, the other day, while Nick was buying wood and struggling to lash it to his bicycle, a complete stranger asked if he would like to put it in her car, instead. She didn’t mind the fact that she would have to go out of her way to take it to our dinghy. And just yesterday, while we were shopping, another woman approached us and asked if we would like to borrow her…
It’s the middle of winter. The days are short and the nights are long; sometimes it seems as if the sun has scarcely risen before he is sliding back down and is once more entangled amongst the cold, naked trees. At daybreak the river is shrouded by a skein of fog, like wet wool, and heavy droplets of water rain from the rigging, hitting the deck above my head with the sharp tap of falling nails. But there’s seldom a…
Our friends have been writing to us lately asking whether we’re okay. At first it was just the folks back home in England. Then people as far away as Fiji and South Africa started commenting on our situation and suggesting that we might be in some kind of danger. To be honest, we were a little bit worried ourselves before we crossed the river from Uruguay. Surely, it’s not a good idea to go and visit a country when that…
