I went to bed early Monday night in preparation for
a 0600 start next morning. The crew went to a strip club. Not all - I'll
leave it to the reader to guess which ones. Some, not all, did
manage to emerge from their bunks at dawn, eyes bleary and bloodshot
from insufficient sleep, too much intoxication and seeing things they
shouldn't, to lend a hand getting out of port. This was tricky because we
were hemmed in by other boats and the wind was blowing at 20 kts but we made it
without mishap and are now back on the open sea with just over 900NM to go to
the Strait of Gibraltar.
One of the attractions of Angra, in addition
to its rich history, the beauty of its buildings - and its strip
club - is the bull fight, which takes place,
somwhat incongruously, at a round-about in a relatively modern-looking
suburb of the town. Local young bloods dice with death in a game of
tag with enraged animals goaded into frenzied hatred of all
humans and desperate for revenge. Meanwhile, street vendors ply their
trade and there is a kind of tense jollity spiced up by the possibility of
real bloodshed. The Roman games must have been much like this. Not that the
animals in this modern version are killed. Once exhausted they are cajoled into
boxes and loaded onto the back of a lorry to be taken away - who knows where or
for what? When we were there certain members of the FS crew did venture
onto the street to demonstrate their bravura in the face of real and present
danger. They were the same ones that later went looking for thrills and
excitement in the establishment of ill-repute. Nobody was seriously
hurt on either occasion but comparisons between the Free
Spirit odyssey and those that must have taken place in ancient Roman times
is becoming uncanny.
Log authored by Peter.