Expats Redux: Winter in Puerto Andratx 1983

Dave getting ashore from "Sea Gull", Andratx harbor. The cat is not pleased.

Foreword, 1992, Ulster County, NY:

I remember that the sea turtle was tethered with an unbreakable nylon string tied to one hind flipper, securely fastened to an iron ring on the quay in Andratx harbor. We boat people noticed it and knew it was destined for turtle soup, but for some reason was being saved, perhaps for a special occasion or until the captor had time to dispatch it. It swam untiringly against its tether, night and day, for days on end. It was about a foot long, dark toffee and amber colored with yellow limbs, the flippers striving doggedly to get away, to get free. Until the evening when, after borrowing a pocket knife from an accomplice, I surreptitiously sawed through the thin polypropylene line and released it, so that its flippers, still working patiently, finally carried it back to the freedom of the dark sea.

My only regret was that I left a loop of line around its flipper, instead of grasping the animal's scaly, thrashing foot to loosen the knot and and free it utterly. Momentarily squeamish about its claws, I may have doomed it to carry the remnant of cord as a souvenir of captivity, which might have eventually crippled it. Sometimes I think my omission harmed the turtle; other times I think the line worked its way off and fell away harmlessly.

The lesson: not to hesitate or do things half way. Regardless of the outcome, which I will never know, even in having the energy and time to write these few words, I feel the knife beginning to saw through the cords of the tether, feel the nearness of the free waters.

Interlude : Christmas in New York, 1982

Dec. 11

I am in Rochester, at my mother's house. Being here is indescribably odd, but good. I went to the bank today to try to exchange 70 Norwegian kroner for dollars, which was impossible. This didn't surprise me. The sign at the Post Office advertising Christmas cards frantically warns: "Don't Miss the Joy!" No indeed. At McDonald's over 40 billion have been served. Gas is $1.30 a gallon, and stores are open until 11 pm, seven days a week. There's snow and ice on the ground, bagels and cannoli on the table, and the Sunday "New York Times."

Dec 16

I'm back in the small college town where I grew up, alone in my father's house. He is out with a 22 year old Puerto Rican art student. My sister Kate, who is attending college here, is likewise out on the town with her friends.

But today my sister danced for us. Eighteen years old. A young girl in gray and lavender moving in a dance she choreographed herself on the university stage. She danced "Sad Lisa" for us with grace and youth. It made me cry. This can't last. These soft times are too good to last. So I'm sitting here crying like an idiot wondering where my little sister will go.

Dec 23

My 24th birthday. Dad and I drove up to Rochester and all five of us, our nuclear family, spent the afternoon and evening together. My brother Joe is here! And I have a guitar! We decorated the Christmas tree, which is a religious icon if I ever saw one, and lit the candles and sang. I could barely keep the lump out of my throat, but managed to by laughing at the antics of the cat. We sang the old Christian songs and held hands, and my mother took pictures with the flash camera. My father went away when it was already dark.

Dec 24

The rain melted all the snow. We all walked on the damp sand on the shores of Lake Ontario. The water and sky were pearly silver gray, the horizon a rust colored smudge and a half moon in the sky. The music on the car radio was strange to me, electronic and trancelike and written for a passive audience. It was beautiful but it almost made me sad again. Cars do not always make it easier for us. Like so many things, cars give us choices. We may choose to be far away from each other, wide ranging animals that we are. Of course that is the choice I take. I suppose the sorrow I feel here is self pity, because I'm leaving so soon. But I will myself to have the optimism to believe we five will meet again many times.

Jan 24, 1983

David and I are in Puerto Andratx on Mallorca. We are living on the lovely wooden boat "Sea Gull", which we met in Gibraltar, and listening to a Bonnie Raitt cassette from home, thus combining the elements of three supposedly separate worlds: Gibraltar, Mallorca, and Rochester. "Sea Gull" is cozy and comfortable inside. She is about fifty feet long, wooden, with a gas stove to cook on, a woodstove for heat, lots of kerosene lamps, and a solar panel which provides enough electricity to run the tape deck.

When I flew back from New York I was very sad to leave my family. Sad also because I knew how swiftly I would adapt to the norm of being without them. And so it is. The visit was very good and makes me think fondly of someday being more a part of those people's lives than someone who sends letters.

I flew from New York to Copenhagen, with a window seat and a quick six hour flight. It was about 8:00 am when the plane got in, and David was actually waiting to meet me at the airport, which was wonderful. He had been in Denmark for a few days already, living with Frans, whom we met while hitch hiking last fall. David whisked me off to Frans's apartment and we spent almost a week there with Frans, his wife Hanne and their baby, Adam.

David was arranging to do some work renovating a villa back on Mallorca. Nothing glamorous- he describes the job as "carrying gravel uphill in a basket"- but a good enough reason to head back in that direction.

We took walks around the city and had dinners with Frans and Hanne, talking long into the night. They join the long list of those who have helped us. We helped them by cooking, cleaning up, shopping, and minding the baby, as they are both busy.

Frans helped us get tickets on a cheap charter flight back to Palma, and we jumped onto the bus lugging our unwieldy luggage- the days of traveling light are over- and were whisked away with no time to say goodbye, onto the airplane and back to the familiar old world of Palma. Sunshine . Longer days. Warmth. And we now know our way around.

We got to stay a week in a hotel in Porto Pi and were provided with two meals a day as part of our charter deal. We spent the week chasing down work, and catching up with old friends along the Paseo. The South Africans Muriel and Jan are still there. Muriel is a bona fide witch, obsessed with her own personal appearance and aging. She says she is trying to achieve immortality. She's truly bats. Uri speaks Spanish now. Mattias has a boat which sinks. Chris and Ekki have a a gorgeous little baby, Jessica.

I spent a day with Jay and Antonia, who want to move ashore from "Yankee" and are fixing up the little house in Son Roca. We had a meal with them en famille at Antonia's mother's house and then visited Guaca the parrot on the boat where it is docked at Arenal. Jay doesn't know how lucky he is to have that family and to be given the perfect little cottage to live in. He was busy painting one room, with white paint all over himself. When we all went down to Mrs. Rigo's house the gang was all there: Antonia's grandfather, great- aunt, brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephews, her mother's beau, three small dogs and Kiko the parrot. We were served huge plates of paella with lobster in it, and Tonia and I and her sister- in- law drank as much wine as we could get away with, giggling loudly. Pepe, Tonia's brother, complained about the amount of time his wife spends on the phone, while she countered by claiming that he phones up to check on her, calling him "Pepe el Moro" [Pepe the Moor] and salaaming. A general riotous time was had by all, with kids and dogs on the floor, old people listening and grinning, parrot squawking, and cake and ice cream and coffee and brandy.

We tracked down the Gibraltar crew of Neill , Josh, Danny and Jude staying in a villa on an orange plantation, up in the hills above Andratx between Santelmo and S'Arraco. Vince, the British wharf rat who was also a fixture on the docks in Gib, has now become a resident wharf rat in Puerto Andratx. We found him when we were following up the rumor that "Sea Gull" had ended up in port, and the three of us hiked out to the S'Arraco villa to surprise the Morgans and got a warm welcome.

Neill Morgan is in his mid to late thirties, tall and lanky, with dark hair and a beard and mustache behind which he lurks. His teeth are bad, resulting in a rather terrifying smile. British. Father a self made banker who died the week before he was due to retire. Neill worked in the banking world at some point in this youth, but also worked for many years as a welder in Iceland. He had an Icelandic wife who went berserk in England and tried to kill him. He has a son around Josh's age whom he hasn't seen in awhile. His first boat, "Saoirsce" was similar to "Sea Gull".

"Sea Gull" has so far used up eight years and everyone's money. They are now subsisting on Mom [Lady Bountiful, as Danny calls her], and the boat has also crippled Neill. He smokes dope a lot, dreams, investigates mystical pyramid power. He's of Welsh extraction: a Merlin. Also a perfectionist, a captain, with Danny as well-trained crew. Now that he is disabled, the balance of power shifts more obviously to Danny, who as she learns more gains more confidence. Her fear of sailing in open ocean brought them into the Med. Their destination varies but is most often New Zealand. Neill is quiet, stubborn, intelligent, woodboat-snobbish. His boat is not ready for sea. His British unflappableness is masking impatience, even despair. Owning the boat allowed them to dream of leaving, but that dream is receding.

Neill is trying to recover from the back injury he got heaving heavy boat tackle around in the fall. In the evening, at a certain astronomical time specified by the almanac and sextant, we all went out in the back garden and aligned some tall reeds to certain stars to help Neill set up a pyramid. He dowsed over it with metal rods when the sun and moon were at 90 degrees to each other, and the wands waved wildly. Neill said he had never seen them move so feebly. He is intent on using all available means, including pyramid power, to heal the damaged discs in his back.

The continuity of seeing friends again for a change, instead of the open ended goodbyes we're so accustomed to, is very nice. Neill said we could live on "Sea Gull" in the harbor to caretake her while they are ashore.

So we're settling in to this relative luxury, airing the cushions, sharpening tools. I'm happy, very happy.

Jan. 25

Chilly morning on "Sea Gull". David arose early to walk to Andratx to catch the Calvia bus for his first day of work up at the stone mason job with Mickey. He'll be doing a real marathon work session, working five days a week, eleven hours a day including travel time. He has always wanted to work with stone and masonry, so he will be learning and hopefully wont get too bored.

Yesterday we set various boat systems to rights, wandering into the hills to gather firewood, filling a gas bottle, rowing the dinghy across the harbor to raid Club de Vela marina under cover of darkness in order to fill the water jugs free of charge. I went marketing in the morning with young Josh. I can understand and speak more Spanish now. We bought locally grown oranges and the creamy, moldy rind cheese. There were starving cats lurking by the Torrente. The harbor water was dirty from trucks dumping fill into it over by the yacht club. A carpinteria let us have scraps of wood for the stove. The sky is clear, clear blue, and all the hatches on the boat are open. The Puerto is a small town, the harbor surrounded by mountains. Lots of sunshine.

Not sure how long we'll be able to live aboard here before the Morgans want to move back aboard. I am investigating the usual cleaning and waitressing jobs, and David is looking into a caretaker/skippering job on a fancy German yacht. We have to clamber onto "Sea Gull" from a leaky rubber raft whilst ducking through a tangle of mooring lines. I have borrowed a Brazilian guitar and have started embroidering dolphins on the back of my denim jacket.

Last night we had dinner with Vince on his new boat, a derelict catamaran he bought for nothing and is busily fixing up. His ex girlfriend, having left her husband, is arriving here from Gibraltar on the full moon and they plan to set up housekeeping. Vince cooked us a good dinner. He is the original "boat kid grown up", of boating parentage. A rat or weasel like young man, he is of slight build, speaks with a lisp, and has one of those irritating laughs that drives everybody insane. He worked for years in the dockyard at Gib, stealing left and right. Was raised partially on his parent's boats and does not consider himself British. He's a somehow endearing combination of obnoxious cheekiness and good heartedness. He wants to sail his decrepit, ugly catamaran, which had been abandoned after washing up on the rocks of the harbor breakwater, to Turkey or to charter in Israel. He's a drinker and is running out of money fast and scrounging for any work he can find.

Jan 30

Back from another pilgrimage to S'Arraco. Jude and I hitched out there together while David was in Palma buying kif [hashish] among other things. Jude and I performed a Spanish language home pregnancy test on her, which came out negative, a hopeful sign, and cleaned up the house in preparation for Neill's mother's arrival. It was a full moon and after smoking kif and eating stew we helped Neill waved rods at the pyramid again, with minimal results.

Jude is the one who took me sailing to Africa for the day when we were in Gibraltar. We first saw her in the company of an eleven year old boy. This, combined with her slight build and the way she spoke, made me mistake her for an adolescent, as well as being one of those people you have to look at twice and say "Hmmmm.... male or female?" She is in fact 26 or 27. Tends to wear denim, bandanas, big belt buckles and lots of silver rings. She drifted into our coterie of bewildered migratory birds as crew on the boat of some friends of "Sea Gull" who passed through Gib. Jude stayed behind, lived with Vince and in fact sailed up here with him from Gib to Andratx in his razor slim day racer sailboat. We were all dubious about the venture but they arrived safely. Jude is bisexual, has lived with one or two guys and one girl seriously. She is remarkable in her ability to get pregnant while taking the birth control pill. Dreams warn her of things. She likes to frequent bars, drink beer, get high. Going to bars means she's able to find jobs like her current one, washing dishes at a swanky local restaurant, the Alta Vista. She has proved her friendship to Neill and Danny with gargantuan feats : doing the for them, dishwashing, hiking back and forth from S'Arraco to the Alta Vista (which is on top of a huge hill overlooking Andratx harbor), taking care of Josh and Neill while Danny was away in England getting an abortion. She's got sandy reddish hair and a face like a fox and is boyishly handsome, and lonely.

Neill, Jude and I hiked over the mountains to the Puerto, going slowly so that Neill would not reinjure his back and stopping in the middle to lie in the sun for an hour or so of reverie and discussions. Neill's back is hurt, and he does not want to give it the western medicine fix of back surgery. He says he wants to cure the earth through science. Fire the warheads straight up, use them as rockets, build cities in space. Dreaming dreams, meanwhile stuck, crippled and broke, unable to sail his dream boat unassisted. The boat may have to go up for sale.

Jan 31

Windy and gray for a change. David is at work. Yesterday we stayed on the boat and received visitors: the South Africans Jan and Muriel, who took us for a drive out in the hills, Jude on her way to work, Vince with his ladylove Dunia, newly arrived from Gib. We wrote letters and went to get firewood and unclogged the toilet. I'm getting accustomed to living surrounded by all this bright wood, the brass and curved glass of the lamps, the brown corduroy cushions, Vince's guitar which I plunk away on daily, the broken isinglass in the front of the old enamel stove. On the table is fresh lavender I picked up on the mountain, and a jug full of wine. Last night the wind intruded into my sleep. I would wake up for an instant to listen to a gust shake the boat, and then drop effortlessly into sleep again. People we knew from the Paseo left yesterday in a catamaran, told by the Guardia to move along. We thought of them last night, one small boat in all that wind, and wished them good luck, the traveler's blessing.

Now I will go to market with a basket on my arm. I will buy fresh white cheese and hard yellow cheese, and look out at the gray restless water of the harbor.

Feb. 1

Memories of the summer blur into a vague recollection of the blazing sun, and the three of us fighting tooth and nail with each other like a true family of wolverines. David is working, bringing in money, and is just beginning to get his usual peeve because so far I am not. But I am filling out paperwork for us, and cooking, and shopping, and cleaning the boat. I admit I am also settling in to cafe society. My embroidery project is in full swing, which enables me to sit by the hour if necessary. Yesterday Jude came over and we walked into Andratx village for another pregnancy test for her, which also was negative. We met the prospective father-to-be, Phillip and his uncle Michel. They are starving artists, their last resource a van with Florida license plates. The well has run dry at their place up in the hills, and the landlord demands rent. But they gave us a ride back to the boat. David and I went in the evening to steal water but everything was locked up. Rowing around on the glassy black water in the still, clear, chill night was a contrast to the warm woodstove heated cabin murky with cigarette smoke, where Jude plays hostess to Mateo, the local Mallorquian eccentric.

Feb. 3

Market day in Andratx town. Jude and I took the bus up and I went wild buying fruits and vegetables. Then we went into a little bar and had a tapa of tripas [tripe], and milky coffee. By and by Danny "The Smile" Morgan walked in, with her son and mother- in- law in tow.

Danny- Diane Shenton-Morgan- is from the north of England, land of the "Border Folk". Her father was in the merchant Navy, her mother died of tuberculosis. She was married for many years to some sort of vivacious drunk- Josh's father- who lived on a houseboat. Danny was the one to notice "Sea Gull" lying fallow in a mud bank somewhere, and it has largely been her energy and enthusiasm which has pushed the "project" - a life's work, actually- this far. She is a couple of years older than Neill, young looking, with trim girlish figure, long coppery auburn hair all the way down her back, and a contagious smile.

The saga of "Sea Gull" is long and involved. They have experienced setbacks, disasters, brilliant strokes of luck, bad weather, accidents, godsends. Danny has learned how to utilize her charm when necessary, how to start the engine, how to pour pitch in the deck seams to keep the water out. She wants what is best for her son, likes to have time to sew and collect wildflowers. A note of panic sometimes creeps in though, as last night when her purse was empty and Vince had to pay for their drinks. She chafes at the bit a little, talks about her husband in Neill's presence, and has a whole string of beaux and fans along the quay tempting her to escape with them. But Neill has her well trained. Her standards are high. Both of their standards are sometimes hopelessly, unrealistically high. Just back from her trip to England, Danny is just as slim and girlish as ever. When the sale of "Sea Gull" was discussed, tears came to her eyes. Their dreams, their precious dreams. But there are worse places to be stuck than Mallorca. It could be worse. We could be in Cleveland.

Feb. 4

Clear day, heavy dew on the decks, barometer high. Walking along the back road I see the almond blossoms pink and snowy white against the sky, a calf is munching the green grass, a baby lamb butting its mother strongly asking for milk, and white pigeons roosting around their coop. David comes home from work exhausted and starving. I feel the first neurotic pangs of cooped-uppedness. I am loving playing the guitar, although the sounds I produce are questionable. I saw firewood, try to outfox the senoras in the various exorbitant local shops, and cook meals with the tape deck blasting and a glass of wine or a joint to inspire me.

Feb 5

Gray day. Jude and I rowed out to the outer harbor to visit Ole, the old Dane who lives on his boat there. He has been here for fifteen years, getting old, with no money. He does beautiful rope work and used to splice wire and lines for yachts around the harbor, but "no one asks for that any more." Last night we also made a successful water run, rowing stealthily over to lurk our way around the arrival quay, speaking in whispers, watching out for the watchman. The dog barks at us, we fill the jugs and row away with our booty, the sweet fresh drinking water that we didn't have to pay anyone for. Yesterday met Jude in the Bella Vista with Mateo and a friend, drinking cafe con leche and smoking kif and tobacco amongst the proper elderly German tourists eating their ensaimada pastries and staring blankly out at the harbor. Matteo had a sprig of mimosa in his fedora.

Feb. 6

A storm is blowing into the harbor. Nothing too drastic yet, just building up. Yesterday the conquering hordes invaded the boat in the form of Danny, Neill, Josh, Mrs. M, and her dog. I had a good social day of tea and cakes with them. David and Neill scooted off in the newly rented car to buy kif in Palma and we ladies mosied into Tim's Pub where we warded off the advances of a drunken Spaniard and signed petitions against urbanization in the valley. Mrs. Morgan is very mild and mom-like. "I can't go on helpin' 'em forever", she observes, as she passes out pesetas to the children. Danny skips off with the money like a young girl. Stormy weather. The boat rocks and creaks, the bedding is damp. The Mallorquian girl with the petitions, Rosa, shining like the Madonna, says they must stop the new road which will cut through her mother's orchards. Jude looks in the atlas at the map of the Atlantic gleaming bright and blue and wide.

Feb. 7

Still blowing industriously from the southwest. David almost missed the bus this morning, woke up ten minutes before it left, couldn't find his shoes. I walked up the hill over the harbor to the Alta Vista restaurant, where I may perhaps work, covering for Jude while she is away in England. Kitchen work at 300 pesetas and hour. I wouldn't mind.

It's a good thing we have this beautiful boat to live on. Should we sail to England with them? Will that voyage ever be made?

Feb.8

The wind storm has calmed down. Captain and crew of "Sea Gull" were here yesterday to check on the boat. We discovered that the boat next door's anchor had come untied during the night, so that boat was nosing up towards the quay and being held back only by "Sea Gull"'s mooring lines. Much cursing and indignation followed. The owner was located and came by to set two spare anchors. I sawed firewood with the bow saw and started scraping old varnish off of the top of the spar. Vince's Dunia has not been sighted for days. She hasn't been ashore much. I wonder how she's doing. David missed the bus today by seconds and was faced with the utter stupidity of having to hitch hike to Calvia.

Feb. 9

Yesterday we went to Palma with the Morgans en famille. I showed Danny the wondrous veggies of the Santa Catalina market, bought embroidery floss and lamp chimneys and a ream of paper. We all had the ritual coffee in the green and gold Bar Formentor, and then drove hectically off around the Avenidas to buy kerosene from a pump outside a little shop on Calle General Ortega. Later we strolled around the grounds of the cathedral, went into a shop that sold little inlaid basketry boxes and chess sets, looked at swans in the pool and gargoyles on the roof. I got to strike my blow for womanhood as we turned a corner on a narrow alley. A young guy passed us and was just climbing onto his motorbike. As he went by me he felt me up and goosed me. My blood boiled and I whirled around in pursuit and took him by surprise, screaming "Guarro! ["Slob!"] whacking him on the shoulders so that he "almost fell off the bike", according to Josh. I grabbed the hood of his jacket and ripped it off his coat. He left hurriedly and I explained my actions to my amazed companions, not a little pleased with myself. My self defense transformed the event from an invasive insult to an insult avenged.

Feb.10

The countdown of days continues. I went to Wednesday market in Andratx town and bought bacalao and goat cheese and artichokes. Met Vince and Dunia and took a coffee with them. Back in the Puerto I visited with them on their catamaran, "Hushwing", and saw Dunia's photo album. She is a good and fast knitter and has been producing sweaters at a rapid rate. Back on "Sea Gull", Jude and Mateo shoed up and we got high. Old Ole the Dane came to visit to warm up by the woodstove, since he has no heat on his boat and it's been bitterly cold, windy and rainy. I insisted on playing the guitar and singing a little for my first captive audience. At sixteen, Ole was bumming around on railroad flatcars and in hobo jungles in the USA during the Great Depression. Jude and I went out to run errands: me to buy milk and beg a bag full of kindling scraps from the carpinteria. We had coffee and brandies in Tim's, then back to the boat to David, to dinner, to bed.

Feb.11

Very cold and windy, a bitter, biting wind. Yesterday there was snow up on the mountain. But I am snug and warmly dressed in my Norwegian leg warmers and down parka, sitting below drinking milky coffee. Jude and I wandered up on foot to visit the Swedes Michael and Sylvia, who run dream workshops We wandered around the Andratx valley awhile before locating their house. They are very nice but their ideas failed to inspire me. They see dreams as a way of rehashing events and problems, an ongoing nightly process that is always triggered by something that happened the day before. But we had a lively walk up the valley, past a shepherd and his lambs, almond trees, running hens, a horse who insisted on being petted.

Feb. 12

Josh, Danny's nine year old son, who is thin and white blond and pale, with big brown eyes and freckles, is with David and I on board for an overnight visit. He is quiet and nervous at the moment, eating eggs and chips that David cooked for him. Danny and Neill dropped him off and stayed long enough for us all to guzzle several glasses of red wine before they headed off for a rendezvous with each other "solamente los dos" for the first time in months. She is superbly active, he unconditionally passive.

Feb. 13

Tea, an orange, and the first ensaimada con nata [a fluffy sugary pastry smothered in fresh whipped cream] of the season. I am about to head out to my first day of work in the kitchen of the fancy British hilltop "Restaurante Alta Vista". I prefer kitchen work to waitressing, so I'm not too worried about it, and it'll only be two or three days a week.

David is enjoying being with Josh [My immediate reaction: he needs a son!] They were up late playing a very intense game of chess. Neill's mother will no longer pay the rent for them up in S'Arraco, so we are all looking for places for the three Morgans to live. So far they maintain that we will not be sharing the boat with them as living quarters. Neill's back slips out at the mere sight of the boat. I brought back bags of lemons from the S'Aracco lemon orchard, and David brought almonds he had gathered off the ground from the trees in Calvia. Last night I once again subjected an audience to my guitar playing, sitting by the little enamel stove putting out heat on small chunks of almond or olive or carob or pine wood, rain tapping on the decks softly.

Feb 14

Cold morning. David caught the bus for work. Josh is here and still asleep. Yesterday I reported for work at the Alta Vista and ended up peeling a case of pears, standing by the open window from which pours out clouds of smoke from the huge ham roasting in the oven. There are two or three Spanish workers, plus the two English owners, Mike and Jilly, who find it easier to tell me what to do in English than to speak Spanish. Mike is blond and corpulent and leers at me. Jilly is blonde and glamourous, "all tits and hair", as Jude says. They fed me a big plate of roast beef, and I am working again tonight. It snowed and hailed briefly and furiously at noon, which put the locals into a panic and covered the decks of "Sea Gull" and the solar panel . Pleasant evening playing guitar while David and Josh had another game of chess, with lentils slow cooking on the woodstove. Danny went to see the Dream Workshop people to ask about renting their 1719 Jesuit monastery. She liked it , but they want to charge mucho dinero.

Feb. 15

A late night last night at the new job, drinking instant coffee at the Alta Vista while plastered Britons carouse in the dining room. It's the kind of place that is painfully expensive but back in the kitchen we're washing the gravy off of people's leftover carrots and sending them out to someone else.

The owners are a couple in their late thirties, both big, tall and big boned. Mike in particular is hugely built, also overweight, sporting an immense fat belly. Reminiscent of Donald Trump in looks and behavior, he has a round face in which small brown eyes lurk behind a big, piggy grin. He owns gargantuan tuxedos and black velvet dinner jackets and tends to lurk behind the bar, occasionally venturing into the kitchen to ask if he can do anything, only to be screeched at by the toiling Gilly. She has a cloud of rather stiff blonde hair, a pretty, ruddy face, heavily made up, and a shi-shi color coordinated outfit in every color of the rainbow. She mothers their two boys, loves dogs, is relatively empty headed and tends to panic. She prefers to be out carousing in the restaurant rather than fishing burning Yorkshire pudding out of the oven. They both treat their Spanish workers as if they were lower forms of life but are at the same time friendly with them.

It's a love- hate relationship. Maria, the older Spanish waitress, spends hours on her feet, does all the ironing for them, cleans up the dog vomit, etc. Maria seems to relish waitressing amongst all these Andratx "Beautiful People", and comes back to the kitchen with reports of the girl who took her top off on the terrace, or that Mike is feeling some girl's ass. She's fascinated, repelled, in pain, but can't stop working.

Today, a quiet day of living aboard. A neighboring boat's generator growls and rattles. Drips from this morning's rain filter stealthily down through the deck planks onto the bed and sofa cushions. How would the anthropologists describe us? "When once one has hunted the elusive boat people, a decadent nomadic culture of the second half of the twentieth century... clues to their whereabouts... a whiff of frying onions emanates from the darkness at some obscure quay... the stealthy splash of oars..." etc. Boarding the boat from the stern is a mad scramble from the bouncy rubber dinghy, which acts as nervous as a thoroughbred, to the boomkin-stay, while at face level two long logs of firewood, bristling with rusty nails, resemble the fortifications of a medieval homestead. A territorial boundary which I violate sometimes is using my neighbors' gangplank, which is a no-no. Today while doing this I discovered, too late, that he was on board, not elsewhere as I had hoped. As I clattered across his gangplank, which is the only convenient way to get ashore without smearing oneself with diesel oil from the harbor while performing acrobatics in the dinghy, I see out of the corner of my eye that he has shot up to the cockpit to observe the perpetrator of this trespass. I stalk off without looking back, like a cat on a fence crossing a dog's backyard.

Feb. 18

Strong mint tea for breakfast. Yesterday Danny, Josh and Ole visited. Dunia come over and confided about her brief - two month- marriage. Danny has been separated from her husband, Josh's father, for seven years. Danny and Neill will be moving in to the Jesuit monastery, which comes complete with a Siamese cat and a small but functioning washing machine. David has taken to smoking a joint on the bus on the way to work. The boat is rocking from a wake, causing the wooden marionette hanging on the hatch to dance. The skies are gray and it is flat calm, the anchored boats scattered like toys on the water, all pointing in different directions, the air chilly and damp and still.

Feb. 19

It's the weekend. I have just breakfasted lavishly on a smoked pork chop and some apple pie, leftovers from the restaurant, while sipping on de luxe Earl Grey tea, "Sea Gull"'s trademark. It's warmer and sunny. We have hopes of a shower and a party tonight.

We've met a British boat couple named Peter and Jackie who want me to read the Tarot for them. There's an English "Clairvoyant" who sometimes gives readings at the Alta Vista and gets paid for it, but they were disgusted with the fortune that she read for them because it told them nothing exciting about their lives. Peter and Jackie are small of stature, quiet, and keep to themselves. They have a beautiful sleek steel ketch on which they lavish time and money. He is a Cambridge graduate but has somehow ended up caretaking yachts and doing a little chartering. Jackie is a nervous sort, like a small timid animal, a mouse. She almost jumps visibly when drugs are mentioned. David casually lets words like "opium den" fall and her eyes start out of her head. They quietly sailed to the Caribbean and back a couple of years ago. They were devoted to their pet cat but he can't abide children.

Feb. 21

Recovering from the weekend. I worked six hours yesterday, frantically washing dishes at the Alta Vista. This was after being out rather late at a party in a beautiful old Mallorquian household out near Saracca, home of Aussie Pete and Luce. He is, as can be surmised, Australian, and has sailed here from Tahiti and been here three years . She is Dutch, one of those Mick Jagger lookalikes. Vince and Dunia threw the party. The cast of characters included Roland, the German granola-eating, Chappelle-quoting wood butcher, and Pablo, the Chilean puppeteer, who had just given Roland a haircut with a straight razor. We managed to eat a large and delicious meal, drink a lot of wine, and smoke hashish. The house is lovely and has room for more to live there comfortably, although the owners could appear back from Belize at any moment to reclaim it.

Today is gray but the barometer is high. I got paid so I can provide this week's housekeeping money. I read Peter and Jackies' cards. They gave us showers and five gallons of water and ground some coffee beans for us. Danny and Neill had the flu and didn't come to the party.

Feb, 22

Yesterday as I sawed wood on deck, who should arrive but Josh in a taxicab, with a note for me from his mother. She is very sick, requiring antibiotics from their supply on the boat, groceries, and for me to feed the siamese kitten over at the monastery. I managed to arrange a ride to Sarraco with Tony, our neighbor on the quay who was going home in that direction, ran around town buying food and checking the mail for a registered letter with money that they were expecting. I dropped Josh and the bread , milk and rice off and had a brief glimpse of Danny, sick in bed, and of Neill's pale face as he moved slowly to put the groceries away. Then I went out with some trepidation to the monastery expecting the cat to be starved to death on the floor, after four days without food. But the cat was alive and happy to see me.

Feb 25

Tiring day legging it around Palma with Dunia. We shopped for jeans for her, and she was very particular about the fit. She attempted to send money overseas to no avail. We bought pork lard, and cheap shoes, and mussels and tiny sardines, raisins and pork chops and bay leaves, in the big Olivar market. Went to visit the white doves in Plaza Espana, drank a chocolate, bought nutmeg and cinnamon sticks at a spice shop which made us sneeze. I was able to warn her as we were approaching the big stone staircase where I knew the Gypsy ladies like to hide at a certain spot and then leap out at you and startle you and pick your pockets. So we grasped our purses tight, and sure enough, they jumped out at us, but we just grabbed our bags tighter, and they got annoyed and yelled and slapped at us as we moved on. We ended up down by Santa Catalina, wolfing a bowl of baby shark and noodle soup, before catching the bus home.

Dunia is eighteen, plump and winsome as a young partridge, with short curly permed dark hair, fair skin and freckles and a turned up nose. Her mother is Spanish, her father English, ex- Navy. She has lived in Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, Scotland, and Gib. She is new to boat living, the rowing to get ashore and all the "jumping", as she calls it. She had been living with Vince for some time, left him for the brief and disastrous marriage to a Navy guy, but is now resigned to being back with him. She is sweet and spunky, and says she wants to get a young kitten and bottle feed it. She is a good and fast knitter and has been producing sweaters at a great rate.

Tonight I will attempt to barbecue the pork chops on deck and have flan, steamed mussels, spinach and spuds, a feast from the land.

Feb. 26

My barbecuing effort managed to scorch a bit of the afterdeck, which has not made me popular with our landlords. David has been working for a local boat carpenter, Vincente Vera who knew him from working for Joachim last year. We went to Tim's Bar with him last night. The place was packed with our fellow boat bums and "extraneros", all very intent on the darts match. The darts champions and their ladies fair were the equivalents of the jousting tournaments of yore, with small sharp objects winging about the place and everyone pretty plastered. We had a great time observing, commenting and babbling in our pidgin Spanish with Carmen, the ex servant girl of Joachim and Nanu from last spring. We had one drink and then went home to bed.

Feb 27

Full moon tonight. A bright blue and blustery day with big gusts of northwest wind. Yesterday David was roped in to working all day for Vincente Vera. Danny arrived on foot and she and I borrowed a car and went swooping off to S'Aracco to move house. We brought one and a half carloads up to the monastery and today they will walk over there, making the exodus, with their cat, who may come to live with us on the boat as there are four felines at the monastery already. Neill has run out of hashish, Josh has had the flu, and I guess they are as near to nervous collapse as we ever are.

It was a warm and beautiful day yesterday, a hot and hazy preview of summer. There was a big wedding in the Puerto, of a member of the mafioso smuggling Vera family, so there were crowds of well dressed wedding guests in town, the women all sweltering in their furs.

I am about to hoof it up the steep hill to wash dishes at the Alta Vista and snitch leftover bits of roast pork from the abandoned plates of rich Britons.

Feb. 28

Today at work I got a bellyful of roast pork, and had perfume dabbed on me by Lady Jilly, who had been given a big bottle of it as a gift by a customer. Encarna, the stocky middle aged dishwasher whom Mike denigrates [viewing her from behind, he sneers, "How could anyone ever f*ck that?] was weeping because divorce is now legal in Spain and her husband was threatening to divorce her. When she asked me what Mike had said about her, as he had spoken in English, I just scowled and told her the remark was a "tonteria" or idiocy.

We had Vince, Dunia and Happy John over for dinner. Happy John is a very British rugby player type in his early forties, with a square jaw, a shock of auburn hair and a rogue's smile. He owns his own big steel sailing yacht which he built and has chartered successfully in Greece, Turkey and England. He has an unhappy wife and a six year old daughter. They are struggling with the relationship, vying for the child's allegiance. The wife has found a teaching job ashore at the American school here. John is a very blatant, charming womanizer, wild for Danny whom he flirts with brazenly. He has itchy feet and doesn't want to feel trapped here. Knows he can pick up and leave at any moment with the boat, and toys with the idea. Stroking the throat of Sophie, his daughter," Is there anything you want, my lover?" Little voice replies, " I think I'd like some chocolate." "I'll go and get you some then. And a bottle of wine for us and some Sprite for you. Then we'll all have what we want." Oh, yeah?, I think to myself. But John is unfailingly friendly , generous, and cheerful. Hence the nickname.

March 1

Garbanzo beans in the pressure cooker, jet black pitch on my hand from repairing the deck seam that I accidentally melted with the barbecue. The water tanks are empty again. We went to try to get water at 9 pm, just as the moon was rising over the mountain, but were chased off by the night watchman and will have to try try again.

Taking a mid-morning coffee at the cafe with Jude and Mateo. Mateo looks at me with an appraising eye and asks "Are you pregnant?", with a smirk. When I firmly deny this he ponders briefly and then remarks, " Ah, you're working in the restaurant now, so you're getting more to eat. That explains it." Encarna brought me fresh eggs from her chickens.

March 2

It's gray and chilly and David is mad at me. He's at work, building arches out of the local apricot colored sandstone. I 'm just sitting here in the gray morning light making the market list. I will buy parsley and goat cheese, olives, lettuce, spinach, kale, tangerines, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, brown eggs. I am about to try a first attempt at making lemon curd with lemons from the local trees. After the scandalously high food prices in Norway we are enjoying the abundance here.

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March 4

Routine days except for crying in the morning in bed with David before he leaves for work, with him wondering how come I am bored with him, and me denying it.

I play bicycle mechanic, send a $500. check away by registered mail to his daughter's mother, saw up firewood, make pie dough, fry chicken livers in curry and olive oil. The almond blossoms are gone now and the trees have their new young leaves instead, and the first red poppies are blooming.

March 3

The embroidery of dolphins on my denim jacket is almost done, in swirls of sea green and blue and silver. I am playing the borrowed Brazilian guitar like crazy, practicing every day and singing with it at night. We will stay here, as far as we know, until late May or early June, and then go back to Norway. We'd also like to take "Sea Gull" sailing over to Mahon on Menorca, or possibly crew on a yacht delivery from Palma to Greece.

It is getting more and more clement, and more and more tourists pour off the buses each day to peer at us from the quay. More of the town's cafes and restaurants are opening up again. It's been a short winter. I'm beginning to get restless with pre-spring fever. But I am lucky to be cradled in this wooden nest. The wood glows like amber and shines like honey when the sun hits it. Carefully, as if I were handling eggshells, I wipe the soot from the fragile glass lamp chimneys.

March 4

Yesterday a day with Danny on the boat, then cafe sitting in the sun, trying to ignore the fact that David was mad at me. Vince and Dunia drove Happy John to the airport. Her is off to London, abandoning his wife, daughter, and cat, all three of whom promptly fell fast asleep on their boat. David was late home from work so I was convinced he was out boozing it up with Mickey, his employer. But on the way up to the monastery to take a shower I spied him hiking towards home. So we stayed with Neil and Danny playing chess and the guitar, listening to their stereo, playing with the many cats. Good to be friends again. We walked back to the port under the moon and Sirius.

We now have Neill and Danny's cat on board, which just shat on the galley floor like a true menace but is otherwise most decorative. Josh is here for the weekend and he and David are being guys together, racing off on a grocery shopping expedition before this day's adventure, a ride in the countryside with Vince and Dunia, who have access to a car for the day.

March 6.

Yesterday's sightseeing started with going into Palma to score some kif from Jan. Then we went to the village of Valldemosa, and wandered through the narrow streets full of plants and caged birds, where a colored tile on each doorway askes the patron saint to pray for us. Then over the twisty mountain road to Paguera where we drank coffee and looked at the view out to Paguera Bay and Galilaea. Next to the outdoor tavern Refugio do Cazadores to eat paella and garlic rabbit while the other guests trap shot at live quails launched from a quail launching machine.

Since Happy John is away and has abandoned his wife and daughter, we had expected to eat dinner with them on their boat, but then we saw Marie, the wife, who passed us on the quay carrying a vodka bottle and announced she was going to bed. So we abandoned the dinner plans and went back and played chess on "Sea Gull" and fed chicken innards to the cat.

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March 7

Lady Jilly was not at the Alta Vista yesterday, and a breathless Maria, the cook, informed me that the day before, Mike and Jilly had an immense fight including Jilly winging a bottle of something or other at Mike's head. He ducked, and the bottle sailed through one of the glass front doors. Mike then went and vandalized his wife's car in some manner, while ordering her out. So yesterday's lunch at the restaurant was rather hectic, and I ate and drank too much and brought a bag of leftovers home to the cat.

March 14

Just getting over the annual spring flu which leaves me deaf and hacking for weeks. The cat has readapted to boat living and spends nights ashore prowling the town. Last night we took Vince's water jugs with ours to fill them, as a favor, but then David emptied Vince's water jugs into our tanks because he was peeved with Vince, who had forgotten to leave us the car keys and I, sick and dizzy, had to walk all the way around the harbor to his boat and shout for them.

Happy John is back in town. The quay and harbor are more crowded now with a constantly shifting population of yachts of all species. New arrivals of note are a pair named Ken and Flossie They arrived together on their thirty foot fishing smack, a pretty wooden working sloop. We had actually seen them coming through the canals when we were in France with "Manzanita" last fall. Ken is 38 but looks and acts vaguely younger. In his other life he was a fisherman on England's southern coast, where he has a wife and three kids, one within a year of Flossie's age. Flossie looks like a peevish china doll, with straw blonde hair and peaches and cream skin, and a distinctively screechy voice. She's eighteen or nineteen and is rumored to be of middle class stock although she affects the poverty-stricken nomad pretty well. They are down to earth, friendly, and hard workers. Came here broke and left their ship's log in Tim's as collateral on their beers until they got some cash. Their loud voices can frequently be heard in Tim's, as they play darts and dominoes, their wild hair flying and wearing tattered wharf rat wardrobes. Frequently seen aloft in the rigging, or out on one of the local fishing llauts, or taking coffee a the cheapest of fishermen's bars which I dare not enter alone.

March 1

Cool bright day. Sea gulls are squawking on the mast truck. Yesterday I walked to the monastery to use the sewing machine, and completed the sewing of replacement zippers to our two old faithful zip-together sleeping bags, our "engagement bags" as Dave calls them. Danny and Josh come back to the boat with me and we did a deckwash and went to examine an upholstery job on "Gratitude", an old wooden hulk with a nice old hull, genealogically similar to Sea Gull but in bad shape. Upholstery job ditto. Danny and I talked about sailing "Sea Gull" to New England. Dreams, we must be comforted by our dreams. David woke up this morning moody and mad and went to work. Vince and Dunia have no money. Carl, the Norwegian, fixed Ole's generator and was rewarded with three months worth of carpentry work. Vince arrived minutes too late on that deal.

March 17

Yesterday our old friends from last winter in Palma, Sandy and Julie, the perky young California scientologists, passed through town in their new car. They have bought a gray parrot at the Hyper Market and named it Elwood. They seemed all in a frenzy, tracking down someone who might want to buy their boat, "Sea Diver" which they live on on the Paseo, or have so far. Palma is getting them down. They may have been visited by the Guardia Civil, as now they are considering going legal with their airbrushing and sign painting business, which would be an immense hassle for them either way. They want to sell the boat now and move back to the USA. Their friends Shirley and Dave got busted and had to leave Mallorca, but are now back after spending three or four nights in a Spanish jail. What to do, where to go now, the eternal boat nomad quandary. Vince could work with David in Calvia tomorrow, but he has a bad toothache. All these British people are having terrible tooth trouble.

I washed the decks last night and afterwards the Germans on the boat next door, Jorgen and his parents, washed their deck too. They're more friendly since we never use their gangplank anymore. He even let me fill our water tanks with the water truck he had ordered, but he charged me for it too. The cat uses the gangplank now, but not the humans. I got good and drenched filling the water tanks with the giant high velocity hose from the truck, which filled my boots with water. I considered holding it over my head to get a shower.

March 18

Last night I worked at the restaurant and earned money. Visited Neil and Danny. Neill now wears a conical hat constantly to combat toothache. He is out of his mind. So are we. When I brought a battered, three month old copy of "Life" magazine back to the boat, David and I stayed up until 1:00 am poring over it helplessly, fascinated and repelled by our own culture.

Yesterday I hiked over to the monastery. Already the fields are full of bright red poppies, the green is lush under the orchards with yellow and pink flowers. A cup of coffee at the bar Acal is now at its summer season price of fifty pesetas. From the cafe window I see all the familiar faces passing, the characters of a small town.

Coming home from work at midnight the cat runs down the quay to meet me. David is sound asleep, passed out on cold remedies, but he wakes up to eat the rest of his quiche and the cold barbecued spareribs I brought for him.

Today is crystal clear, cool, breezy- frescito. I prepare to make a pilgrimage into Palma to visit Jay and Antonia for the night. Sitting on the bunk I can eavesdrop comfortably on several shouted conversations back and forth between boats, or between boats and the quay. Tourists' murmurs form an almost constant background noise: "Looe... Sea Gull...Sea Gull of Looe... Look, this one's from Looe.. Sea Gull.."

March 21

Apres le weekend. On Friday David and I managed to meet up on the bus, he coming from Calvia, and we went to Arenal where Jay, Antonia, and the macaw Guaca entertained us and took us out to dinner [sans parrot] at a great smoky ceilinged hall where we cooked our own meat on a grill. Next day, Tonia and I sat in a cafe editing Jay's applications for a work permit with erasers and razor blades, and then delivered the papers to the Guardia Civil .Then up to Son Serra to her mother's beautiful casita, which was blooming with mint and parsley kale and spinach and garlic and onions, and the lemon tree. We painted and cleaned while David and Jay mixed mortar and constructed a fireplace with bricks. The sun beat down, the neighbors screamed at their kids. We took the last bus back and walked from Andratx town to the port.

Yesterday I worked at the Alta Vista, and on returning to the boat found Sandy and Julie and some friends of theirs on board playing guitar on the quarterdeck. I beckoned Ken and Flossie over from their boat, smoked a joint, sang a song. Sandy and Julie stayed for a bowl of soup and I went with them to Tim's Bar, briefly, to give Ken and Floss the nozzle to their bicycle pump back, as they need it to pump up their stove. David got the bicycle working! I must try it out today. Jude should show up at any moment, back from a sojourn in London.

March 22

Jude arrives back in one week, and there is a quandary as to what to do about her job. The Alta Vista claims they don't want her back but want me to stay on. It's a nuisance because I am supposed to be saving the job for her, just filling in.

Yesterday I ran "Sea Gull's" engine, to keep it up to snuff, and washed my blue jeans up at Neill and Danny's. It's the equinox. Yesterday was flawless sun. Today there is mist after the rain last night , and the fragrance of the land blows down the valley towards us. I drink milky coffee and eat an orange.

The cat is asleep on the bed. Spring is here and the bikini-clad tourists swarm. They spread out their towels and lie in the square, massaging themselves with scented oils. David wakes up early and sings, or rather, bellows, the Blues and Frank Sinatra. The neighbors retaliate with Rock 'n Roll shortly afterwards. I am daydreaming of taking the little clinker built sailing dinghy, which is soon to be launched, on picnic trips to the beached around the corner. I do deck wash evening now with a cracked black bucket. The cat runs away from the water, disgusted. German children a few yachts down shout and fight and try to catch fish. The little poppies are blooming, blood red. David's father suspected them of being opium poppies when he saw them here last spring.

March 26

An equinoctial full moon gale is blowing. The sky is changing by the minute, and howling gusts, backed now slightly to the west, tear through the harbor. It's nice to be tied up to the quay so we can get ashore easily, although the boat is lunging around due to the surge, tugging at her fetters.

Dunia has been having adventures recently. Two days ago she fished an old lost anchor off the bottom when it became entangled, along with someone's mooring, in the long painter they use to ferry themselves ashore in their dinghy. I had to shout instructions to her from shore, as she had the dinghy hopelessly tangled and was unwilling to cut it loose for fear of losing the anchor, which she thought might be one of their semi-permanent mooring anchors. It was actually a six kilo fishermen's anchor, plus about three fathoms of rotten, weedy chain disturbed from a long slumber. She managed fine in the end. Then yesterday, in a temporary lull in this energetic storm we've been having, she decided to crew on "Frenya" for the twenty mile run around to Palma with Happy John. The news of this was shouted to me from "Frenya"'s bows as they were about to embark [ "Tell Vince!" ], thereby abandoning the tedious search for a dinghy to replace John's, which they had borrowed but which he was reclaiming from them for the trip.

March 27

Gray Sunday. David and I are taking a coffee and rum raisin ice cream in Tim's. Yesterday we spent a thoroughly enjoyable day together, the one day per week, these days. We did the marketing, ate a lunch with avocados and then bought the first ice cream of the season and caught the bus up to the Monastery. Neill was the only one home. We smoked and joked. I played guitar and sang to my captive audience. We bussed back to the port where we put a leg of lamb on to roast. Ah, Spain!

Earlier we observed our neighbor Tony marching up and down the quay in search of his dinghy, which Vince had appropriated, since he needed it. He also appropriated one of Sea Gull's dinghy oars, but with our previous permission at least. Vince was seen later the same day buying Tony a beer.

Last night David and I quite happily finished off the lamb and then went to Donals' Bar to drink hot chocolate and watch part of a ghastly, violent cop show video.

Today up early, worked at the Alta Vista seven hours, reaching into the black cavernous oven after smoking trays of garlic bread, stealing spoonfuls of whipped cream, pork, ice cream, stuffing, orange sherbet, or cauliflower cheese in swift and arbitrary succession. They want me to waitress now.

March 28

Full moon tonight. A restless night broken up by rain, lightning, thunder, wind. Low pressure. Deck leaks over the bunk drench certain corners of the sleeping bag. Half dreams, dreams, wakefulness. David was snoring in my ear, which became quite monotonous, and in my half waking state I thought I could make him stop by thinking it so, with mind control. He actually did stop, and I was so impressed by my mental powers that I considered diving overboard, in my dream, to search for my missing Haitian hair comb which had fallen overboard. Fortunately, I decided against this.

March 29

Yesterday more torrential rain. Josh and Danny arrived in the midst of it on the morning. Then I heard Mike from the Alta Vista shouting for me from the quay, asking if I could work, and I could , so I grabbed my raincoat and went up to the restaurant with him, worked there three hours, ate curry. Jude was due back from London and needed to be picked up at the airport. She appeared around 9:30 pm. No one had been there to meet her, despite two different expeditions which had supposedly set out to do so. She ended up taking a cab from the airport with a couple who happened to be on the same flight. She is back and her hair is purple. We went out to a local Spanish bar in Puerto that I didn't even know existed. David was in a very bad mood this morning, kicking at the cat, jealous, sleep broken by our arrival at 12:30 last night. The Alta Vista situation is yet to be reckoned with.

March 30

Up early to market. Drops of blood on the deck bode ill for the cat, but no time to investigate as David and I run for the bus: he to work, I to the weekly market. Marketing alone in the chilly, half deserted market. Eating the season's first strawberries with my cafe con leche.

Arrived back on the boat and Jorgen's first words to me are, "You will clean my boat!" which is also bespattered with cat blood. The cat was inside Jorgen's deckhouse, bleeding and oozing from mouth and nose, with wet fur. He is now in an intensive care unit on our bunk. It looks as though he was hit by a car and just managed to drag himself back here, poor fellow.

Yesterday Jude and I had a showdown in Donal's Bar with Mike and Jilly. She knew that they always go there on Tuesday afternoon, and sure enough there they were. We didn't quite know what to say to each other so we sat brooding in separate corner, s each talking about the other. Then Mike bought us a drink and we talked. They had the gall to say they wanted me to work instead of Judy, but Judy and I cornered them into saying she could have a job painting an apartment. Tonight I have to waitress, which fills me with gloom. I prefer working in the kitchen. It's still stormy, squally spring weather.

April Fool's Day

Barometer dropping, wind kicking up a little. Yesterday Danny and I had quite a vicious verbal cat fight, from which we are not yet fully recovered. So far we have kept it between ourselves. She is down at the boat for a few days to do some painting, and David spent last night up in Calvia to avoid the pandemonium. I worked yesterday evening at the restaurant, and will today. The Easter rush is on and the town is full of people. I am full of bitterness towards Danny, who seems neurotic. I suppose it's no wonder, considering what she's going through.

April 12

At a villa in Calvia, Dave's work site. The antheap has been stirred a little. Since I last wrote, our "landlady", Danny, and I had another heated argument. The disagreement started over some petty thing, but it came out that she was having a hard time adjusting to having someone other than herself living on board. It's been her home for seven years. So all parties deemed it better that David and I move. I haven't quite made it up with her yet, but I am sure we will patch up the friendship. We are now marginally ensconced, rent free, in the servant's quarters in the basement of the villa that David and his boss have been working on all winter. This makes it much easier for David, who no longer has the hour commute each way on the bus to get to work. Now I am the one who must get to work by bus, which will get to be too hectic if it's more than twice a week.

I spent four days living up on the hill where the Alta Vista is, in an apartment which Jude and I were panting, in our first stab at interior decorating. Staying up there was pleasant, with hypnotizing views of the sea and the harbor entrance, and a swimming pool. For food, I scavenged bread, milk, chocolate cake, and slices of roast pork from the Alta Vista and lowered them out of the bathroom window on a string to be retrieved later. One day she and I hitched in to Arenal to find the sloop "Xyritha" and crew, part of the original Gibraltar gang. This included getting a lift from one of those horse drawn tourist buggies. I have literally been too busy to write or to do anything about making up with Neill and Danny. David has visited them. We are of course still friends with and in the intimate gossip-pulse circle with Vince and Dunia and Jude.

Calvia is a lovely spot, a tiny sleepy village with no tourism to speak of, full of huge flower gardens and the tinkling of sheep bells. Eggs and strawberries are to be had at bargain rates, and there's a view of the hills leading down to the water.

The disagreement I had with Danny is a good example of the perils of living closely together with other people. Small resentments build up, with strong territorial feelings. It was a struggle for her to deal with living away from her boat. Of course we would love to sail on that boat some time, but as things now stand I doubt that "Sea Gull" will be doing much if any sailing as her captain is basically an invalid.

Dave and I are starting to get itchy feet, and the map of Norway is on the wall. We we tentatively plan to go back there at the end of May, finances permitting He is getting mucho tired of his job, even without the bus ride, and speaks wistfully of going back to Norway as soon as possible. We are starting to make arrangements for Mary to come to meet us in Bergen. For once, we have plans for the future.

My dream is to have a leisurely summer, covering half the distance we did last year. I'd love to take the boat to Grimstad, where it was built, and then finagle our way onto various freighters and head for the U.S. Miraculously, David is tending to agree with me that this sounds like a reasonable scheme. I'll be glad to miss the blistering heart of another Spanish summer. This year, we'll likely be living in our foul weather gear instead of Arabic costumes. But at least it'll be light eighteen hours a day. I had my fortune read by the clairvoyant at the restaurant the other night. She predicted the start of a new venture and that I would return to Mallorca one day. She also guessed that I lived on a boat, and advised me to be pigheaded and insist on doing things my own way. No comment.

We are just settling into this new living situation. It's not so bad at the moment: I'm on the sunny, breezy terrace with a milky coffee, roosters crowing, and the smell of hayfields young and green. Our new household includes our landlords/benefactors of the moment, Mickey and Jan, two British lunatics who discuss seriously the life of Sophia Loren. Mickey is the general contractor, a slight and wiry blond stone mason redoing villas for wealthy acquaintances right and left. Jan is his babbling brunette girlfriend who just sold an antiques business and has been denounced five times for working in Spain. They're in their mid to late thirties and into the disco scene. Last year when David started working for Mickey, he had said we could come live in Calvia, and now finally we are, until the end of May.

April 14

A couple of days of calm in Calvia. Yesterday I searched disconsolately for dill weed in the little shops here, and baked quiche and casserole in the big gas range set up amongst piles of used floor tires and shrouded furniture. The villa is an ugly concrete block house, most of which is unlivable now due to gaping holes in the walls, cement dust, and random electric wires everywhere. The oven can only be used when the gas line is propped up carefully with a piece of lath on a pile of floor tiles. There is a swimming pool, which until recently was full of greenish brown water and floating debris. The water was drained out and the empty pool is now coated with baked on algae and slime. But the location is nice. There's a hammock in the weed grown back garden where the clothesline is, and proper laundry tubs and hot running water.

I ate lunch with David, Mickey and Vince in the workmen's cafe in the village where a table full of young smooth faced men did a perfect imitation - the sincerest form of flattery- of their elders, drinking cognac and playing cards at lunch time, slapping down the cards with triumphant yells still a bit shriller than those of their mentors.

I'm drinking cups of tea in Mickey's portion of the property villa, reading old "Vogue " magazines and listening to the cassette tape of Bonnie Raitt imported from home, from that faraway place where there is no music shortage.

April 15

Lounging in luxury in Calvia. I'm able to take a hot shower and eat toast and oranges in front of a big window with the view of the hills. I took the bus into the puerto yesterday, got high with Jude and helped her work on fixing her bicycle. Then I went to visit the slim and sultry Chilean, Carmen, on her boat and she let me borrow her guitar. She and her equally striking partner, Pablo, are refugees from their continent and style themselves puppeteers. Having viewed first hand the American warships patrolling off shore along their coast during the coup ten years ago, they do not hold Americans in high regard, but have been gracious and seem to tolerate us. Pablo did make some disparaaging remarks about me at first, before he found out how much Spanish I understand.

I ate a tapa in the Cafe Bar with Peter and Jackie, who gave me a ride up to the Alta Vista , where they were going to dine. Business was slow. I slept on Pablo and Carmen's boat, having missed the last bus. Up at 7:15 with mist rising from the harbor in the chilly air. I found a coffee at Bar Colon, and caught the 8:00 bus with Jude, who was heading to Palma. Vince and Dunia were sighted in the distance trying to catch the bus, first paddling madly in the dinghy, then scampering across the bridge like Ratty and Moley to flag down the bus in the nick of time. Rode the bus up to Calvia with Vince, guitar over my shoulder and a bag f leftover sparetribs in hand. Up to the villa, or Casa la Dera as it's called, for tea and a rueunion with David. Now I'm thinking about making an Italian cheesecake since there's a working oven on the premises.

April 18. Apres le weekend. On Saturday I went on the daily rounds with our hostess Jan, a curvy, rather anxious woman whom David flatters and teases by telling her she looks like her idol, Sophia Loren. First we went to her second hand antique shop up in Genova where she was busy dragging furniture around. Waiting for her in the bar next door, I talked to some American women who were drinking early in the day, one of whom took the time to teach me how to shoot craps. Then we went off to a giant discount super market, made slightly more bearable by imbibing vino tinto. It was a huge warehouse, which was busy and crazy, with me riding around on my motorized shopping cart buying large bags of rice and large boxes of tea bags. When we got back to Calvia, Jan loaned Dave and I the car, so we went down to put gas in it and then ended up in Palma. We visited fellow wharf rats Sandy and Julie, with Pip and Elwood, the two parrots, played guitar and sang, and went to Bar Europa where we ate southern fried chicken, drank strawberry daquiris and sang and

smoked dope.

Today I worked at the "Shmalta" Vista which is indeed closing down soon, as the rumors had hinted, snatching handfuls of abandoned apple pie with cream, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, wine. David came to get me and we visited Neill and Danny at the monastery and I hugged Danny and wanted to be her friend. We got back to Calvia around seven, went to bed for a "nap" and were only awakened this morning by Vince as he went by our window on his way to work. It's a gray morning, with the air full of delicious flowery smells.

April 20

Two days ago I went to the market in Calvia and loaded myself up with armfuls of spinach, lettuce, chard, big bags of mushrooms, strawberries, tomatoes. That afternoon I worked a little bit for Mickey, weeding the garden. Yesterday I got up early and bussed and hitchhiked my way into the Port just in time to see Vince's catamaran emerging from the harbor onto the fishermen's slip, its first time out of its element in five years. The growth on the bottom was pretty thick, with long beards of bright green weed and coral growths as big as a man's hand. But Vince's allies, Danny, Jude, myself and of course Dunia, were on hand and whacked it away with long handled wooden scrapers, and in less than two hours the hull emerged from its camouflage.

I visited part of the day with a new arrival here, Anna, a large young German woman and her large and healthy baby son, Johnathon. I met up with Jude in Donal's where we tried to get some money off of Jilly to pay us for painting that apartment, to no avail. Came back home to Calvia for dinner. After dinner Jan came for a visit, since Mickey wasn't home, and told us hair raising tales of Mickey beating her, including displaying large purple bruises on her thighs. I'm uncertain as to just what she does to inspire rage in him, if anything. She drank a bottle of wine with us in the bedroom while we were in bed and then thought she heard Mickey at the window, took fright, and left.

April 21

Bar Acal, Puerto. There's a gale kicking up, hurling spray and eel grass across the public quay. Yesterday I worked polishing up Casa de la Dera: sweeping dead flies off the marble floor, dusting glass tables, paper thin ceramic vases, and gamebirds made of sea shells. This morning there are gray skies and files of gray clouds marching past, rain and wind. David was working on our part of the house, chipping holes in concrete walls with a chisel. I took lunch in the village bar with Dave and Mickey and then caught the bus to Puerto where I helped Vince and Dunia put bottom paint on the "Hushwing". I visited Jude who is boat sitting on "Sea Gull", and drank a restorative tomato juice. "Sea Gull" is moving and surging on her lines. These are the roughest seas I've seen in the harbor since we've been here.

I am already hiding indoors from the sun and wind when I can. The palm leaves wave wildly, a motor boat drags its anchor, and someone heads for the Torrente at a run, worrying about his fishing llaut. Dunia, covered with specks of blue bottom paint, drinks a hot chocolate, while Vince chops holes in his boat for various valves and bilge pumps. Jude and her beau Phillip share their last cigarette, and Phillip's van, parked on the quay, is getting coated with salt spray.

April 22

This morning , coming from Peter and Jackie's apartment, where I had slept after work, I walked down to the port to catch the first bus back to Calvia. Happy John passed by in his car, coming back from staying with some woman on the other side of the harbor. He assumed I'd been on some kind of clandestine mission myself. "Where have YOU been? Regards to David..." and he cocks one eyebrow at me and is off to his teaching job at the American School in Portals.

April 26

We spent the weekend with Anna, playing with the baby, singing, making music. Anna is strong, crazy, full of fun and drama. David and I liked her immediately. We all hung out with Carmen and Pablo, singing and playing guitar, and with Roland, the dashing young German boatbuilder.

Anna is a good six feet tall, large boned and well proportioned although she has been overweight at times in her life. She has a wide smile, high cheekbones, a Slavic looking face, and dark hair which is cut short. She has the fragility of a person who has been teased because of her size. She's also fierce, flamboyant, ready to lambast Roland, Carmen, or anyone she finds fault with. Dramatic, likes to tell stories, mostly about herself, and laugh. Sings in a loud, clear voice. Her parent are well off enough to help her financially as she raises her child alone. Her house is full of toys, boxes of candy, balls of silken yarn in bright colors, bits of antique jewelry, toasted soybeans coated with chocolate. Baby Johnathon is a growing Buddha, husky and with a few rolls on his belly, a good and fast grabber of interesting things like keys, bowls of soup, wine glasses. Jude turned up for brunch with Oliver, a six month old baby who had screamed all night under her care. Anna "Tormenta", Storm Anna, offered her breast to the stranger's child, tears running down her face. Her own son laughs and sings, joy flowing through him from his small body in waves, unmistakable.

April 27

Full moon tonight. Last night I went out like a good pagan and blew a horn thrice at the moon. It was a cow's horn with a plastic mouthpiece and a red tassel and a decal on it saying "Switzerland".

Yesterday I polished brass and glass at the Big House, and had the usual cafe lunch with the guys. Outside it's now the height of burgeoning spring: fields full of lush green grass, new green leaves on all the trees, millions of flowers: geraniums and phlox, snapdragons and nasturtiums , pink and and gold. Sheep graze and lambs gamboll among the carob trees in the field next door, their bells tinkling in a mesmerizing manner. I found a litter of baby kittens born in the unused utility sink, and I am taming their mother with milk and a chicken neck.

April 28

Yesterday the working class swarmed around Casa de Sera like bees, in preparation for a visit from the owner, Eddie. David cut tile, Vince was painting, I was polishing marble floors, Mickey mixing cement, and two guys from Club de Mar were filling the pool and washing the stone patio and steps with acid. Jan was inside fixing up huge flower arrangements and drinking champagne. Eddie is her hero.

Mickey tells stories at lunch about his army days, living for years in places like "the Yemeni", desert survival. Somehow the discipline of the British army enables him to maintain his sanity while working year after year as a stone mason and interior decorator.

Jan, on someone they went out to dinner with recently: "He doesn't have much of anything going for him."

Mickey: "Nice looking wife though."

"Yes, he has a lovely wife. Well, he really is a nice person." [pensively] "Even if he's not good looking. I suppose that's why he has a nice wife, because he's a nice person." I groan inwardly.

May 2

Sitting outside the Bar Acal, with Dunia and Anna and the baby. I've been in the Puerto for the past four days, working my last stint at Alta Vista. We had a barbecue one night in Anna's back garden under the pine trees, cooking on a wood fire with Vince and Dunia, Pablo and Carmen, Jude, and some others . Music, guitars, singing, beer and vino, a few smokes, talking in Spanish and English, singing in harmony. The Alta Vista is

in a frenzy of closing down, trying to sell everything out of the deep freeze.

This morning I took a brief boat journey with Pablo to try to get his boat hauled out on the fishermen's slip here, with Pablo clinging on to the side of the railroad lift whilst bellowing to Tony Pino who was clinging to the other side. The boat was too deep drafted to get onto the slip, unlike the catamaran, so we chugged back into the melee of the harbor where another boat was trying to snitch Pablo's spot on the quay. A shouting match ensued and the usurper was driven off. It's a bright windy day, with the town full of tourists, Dunia coming ashore to do her washing, and Jonathon spilling the coffee.

May 5

In Calvia for a brief respite from the social whirl. The last night at Alta Vista was rather festive, including the kitchen staff getting playfully sprayed with a bottle of champagne. Maria the waitress gave me a gift of fresh eggs from her hens. I danced for awhile before weaving my way down the hill on the narrow moonlit footpath, chuckling to myself as I evaded the entreaties of one of the sleazy local playboys to "go to the discoteca" with him. It will be a pleasure to not have to go to that place anymore.

Yesterday I met Anna in Palma and we toured through the town scattering largesse and pesetas. We visited a Planned Parenthood clinic, a boutique where Anna bought a black jumpsuit for 4,000 pesetas, various cafes, and an art gallery. We finished up on Plaza Atarazana where Phillip gave us a ride home in his van, me to Calvia, Anna to the Port.

May 12

It's Thursday and I'm still recovering from last Saturday night. After I last wrote, we were visited in Calvia by Agiva, a gorgeous caramel skinned eighteen year old Algerian girl with a cloud of black curls, who had been working as an au pair nearby and knew Mickey. She was looking for him, but he had just left for England so she turned to us for help. She had just quit her job with an insufferable Englishwoman and had nowhere to live and no work prospects. We comforted and befriended her, and the next day she went to Puerto with me to see if she could work as a cook or house girl for one of the local millionaires. On the bus I was helping her learn to read English, at her request. Unfortunately, we were informed that someone had just been hired the day before. She cried a little, made some phone calls, and then disappeared off to Paguera, and we haven't seen her since. So I went to Anna's where Pablo was making paella over an open fire.

Next day as Roland's new boat was being launched with great fanfare, Jackie came running up to me trying to get me to call an animal rescue shelter because a dog had been hit by a car and was bleeding to death up by Donal's Bar. Jackie seemed about ready to have a nervous breakdown, but I had no idea who to call or how to help her. Anna and I started cooking up a big potato salad. A party was underway out at Aussie Pete's to celebrate Roland's boat launching. I read Pablo and Anna's Tarot. David arrived, some local Mallorquian friends of Anna's arrived, we mixed up Sangria. Pablo ate leftover paella and then went to Roland's party. Someone named Geordie heard us playing guitar and dropped in to join the festivities. Then Sandy and Julie arrived and we played blues out of my big songbook. By this time it was 11 pm or so. David went to Roland's party with Geordie. Leaving Anna with the kid, the rest of us piled into Sandy's car and wended our way to S'Arraco where it soon became apparent that a big party was in progress. There were thirty or forty people there and enough wine and weed and, later, champagne to go around. A tape deck was blaring, and someone was attempting to set up a sound system for electric instruments. Sandy attempted to plug in his guitar, and the tape deck was shut off and put on again several times. Finally the recalcitrant speakers boomed into life, only to burst into smoke and flames two minutes later. Danny was right in there with an acoustic version of "Can't Get No Satisfaction". Shortly thereafter he put his guitar away and I went and surveyed the selection of tapes, found some old "Santana" and we danced and danced, Dave and I, rather suggestively. I borrowed a drill bit from Roland, and draped fur rugs on people and was generally obnoxious. At 4:30 a.m. we got a ride back to Anna's and climbed in the bedroom window.

We were up way too early, to tackle the permanent state of chaos surrounding the house. Anna dressed me up in a magenta dress and stockings. I borrowed a drill and plane from Roland, and we all went to the cafe, me in scarlet, Anna in her black jumpsuit, and David in a green velvet bow tie. We go to Tim's to try to score some weed, then back to Anna's to eat dinner and discuss religion, war, and the descent of woman. After going back to Tim's Bar, which was jumping with all the same people who had been at the party, to return Roland's tools to him, and a brief stop at Pablo and Carmen's 's boat, where they were playing chess, we slept at Anna's again, and got up at 8 to catch the bus to Calvia, in a state of utter exhaustion. Ozzie, the British pool cleaner arrived, out of work and hungry. We fed him. Pablo phoned and said that Anna and the baby had sailed for Ibiza with Happy John.

May 19

Yesterday night, I dreamed of our arrival in Norway. We have already left here, according to my subconscious.

On Saturday night we went to Anna's and found she had just returned from Ibiza a few hours earlier. Pablo came over and he and David went out to buy dope. Next day Jude came over with muchas pesetas for me, as were finally getting paid for painting that apartment. That night David drove off on the back of Pablo's motorbike to return to Calvia, overcome by the atmosphere at Anna's, which was supersaturated with feminism. Also I had painted my eyes with black kohl and put on the black jumpsuit with a matching sombrero, which frightened David. So Anna, the baby and I went briefly to Tim's for a cider, and then out to eat rabbit at C'An Toni.

I last saw Anna on Tuesday when I escorted her to the American School to apply for work there. We visited Happy John and Marie, and Anna went off to Puerto with John.

Yesterday I went into Palma to buy guitar strings.

Today I cleaned Eddie's villa for pay. It is siesta hour and I am sitting inside in the shade before venturing out to take a swim in the pool. It is very hot. The sky is cloudless, and the Mallorquian farmers have already done their haymaking. Everything is about to turn brown and dry up for the summer, going dormant to withstand the heat.

May 24

I arrived back in Calvia yesterday morning after a day in the Puerto to find David had packed my bags and placed them outside the door. He is feeling the strain of working five months nonstop for a wife beating pissant, while in his eyes I have the appearance of not working very hard and just enjoying myself. It took me awhile to get the house keys back from him. It is getting to be that time of year when both of us start to lose our sanity after being cooped up all winter. We now discuss with increasing urgency the purchase of plane tickets to Oslo, soon.

May 26

Full moon. I have been staying in Calvia, acting as David's support system and existing day to day in studied, self disciplined boredom. Tonight we had Mickey and Jan over for a barbecue, a small token in exchange for the hospitality they've extended to us. I have been swimming in the pool, lying in the sun, storing up energy for the annual spring frenzy of getting back on the road.

May 30

Yesterday we borrowed Jan's car in an escape attempt from the isolation of Calvia. We went to the Arenal Marina to see if I had a day's work with Peter and Jackie, who were slipping a boat there. They didn't need help, but we visited for awhile. Peter had sprained his leg in a fall from the scaffolding, and they have adopted a new baby kitten, a starving and diseased specimen. The boat they caretake had become infested with fleas and ticks over the winter, and Jackie had collected 70 ticks in a bottle to show the owner.

After stopping to eat garlic bread in Genova, we went back to Calvia where Eddie the Owner and his wife and her sister had just arrived. A water leak instantly developed in the part of the villa where they're staying, sending a river cascading down the the garden steps, and a resident rodent gnawed a hole in the specially imported box of breakfast cereal brought by one of the party. Today is baking hot. We feast on strawberries, cherries, peaches, apricots, pears and oranges.

June 2

Looks like we'll be leaving soon. We have bought Mary's ticket. She will arrive in Bergen on June 27th. The day before yesterday I went to the "Kunsterkroen", a Danish bar in Terreno, to meet up with the guy who sells illegal tickets to Scandinavia, the leftovers and swaps from cheap charter flights. I told him we wanted to go towards Norway as soon as possible. Yesterday I ventured into Palma Nova, following another lead, to the "Hotel 33", which is alleged to be inhabited by Norwegians on package tours. I spent awhile sitting in the hotel bar before finally getting up the nerve to question one of the staff re tickets. She seemed shocked but gave me some idea of the price of a regular one week charter package.

When I got back to the villa I received a phone call from a Scandinavian woman who said she had two tickets to Norway, so today I returned to the "Kunsterkroen" and arranged to buy two tickets for this coming Sunday at 12,000 pesetas each. I paid 6,000 today and tomorrow I have to go back and pay the rest. I hope the guy doesn't burn us, but he has been doing this for years, plus I mentioned Jan Parsbo, the owner of the "L'Amie", whom he knows. The Norwegians we bought the tickets from were huge men with white hair and tattoos on their arms.

Today is baking hot. David is mixing cement by hand. Tomorrow is his last day of work. In three days time we will be flying to Oslo if all goes well, and then hitchhiking across Norway. "Just don't get stuck up in the mountains at night," we're told.

Neill has donated some camping equipment to us: a waterproof sleeping bag cover, some waterproof matches, and a compass. It's going to be a wetter season for us than we've been accustomed to. The new compass is a very good quality hand compass, for orienteering. It's the third compass we've been given so far on our travels. People seem to be concerned that we'll get lost. David's father sent us a magazine article entitled "Bergen- Jewel of the Arctic", which does not once mention the legendary annual rainfall.

June 5

At the train station in Oslo.

On Friday night, with the tickets all bought and paid for, we borrowed Jan's car, after having a farewell drink with Jan and Mickey, and went to the Puerto. We returned tools to "Sea Gull" and sat with Neill and Danny awhile. They have officially put the boat up for sail. We visited Vince and Dunia and gave Vince some money that Mickey owed him, and since the car was low on gas we spent the night with them and their kittens on the catamaran. Dunia is starting work at the butcher's shop in town. She doesn't want to work full time but may end up doing so.

Next morning we met Carmen on her way to work, and went and returned her guitar to the boat where Pablo was sleeping.

Then we went to Anna's for a brief goodbye. Her father was there with her. Back to Calvia to clean and lock up the house, then down to the bus station in the sweltering heat of the day. Bus to Palma.

We went to Sandy and Julie's apartment. Julie was in England, due back at 4 a.m. We spent a wonderful relaxed afternoon avoiding the heat, reading, listening to and playing music, playing with the parrots. Dave bought stuff for a barbecue and we cooked steak and pork chops outside in the yard. Stayed up pretty late doing music, fell asleep on a mattress on the living room floor and vaguely heard Sandy leave at 4 a.m. to go to the airport.

They got back at 7a.m. to cries of "Welcome home, Julie!" emanating from the mattress on the floor. "Hello, you characters." She and Sandy went right to sleep.

We left at 10 a.m., and took two buses to the airport. Sure enough, our connection was genuine and was there waiting to take our bags. We received boarding passes, went to the terminal and bought hard liquor at the duty free shop for our friends in Norway. Then onto the plane.

Clearing customs on this end was surprisingly painless. They didn't give us a second glance. We changed all the pesetas into kroner and caught a bus to the train station, where we are now debating taking the more expensive night train to Bergen, or spending the night somewhere in the vicinity to save 120 kroner by taking the 7:30 train tomorrow morning. David is investigating camping possibilities.

From the air on our way over the coast line to Oslo proper, we saw many boats moored and sailing, windsurfers, dinghy sailors, yachts of all descriptions out being sportive on a Sunday afternoon. It's not raining at the moment, but everything is expensive. A new phase begins.