A good swim

I swam out to the boat at night while Tony rowed Matty out to give it a look (after they were hooked, but before the price had been set.) They're going to crew with him at the regatta this weekend, and stay aboard for 2 weeks. They're like 3 peas in a pod. Tony owes me big time, though he doesn't know it, since he never would have done it without my encouragement, but he owes luck even more for the crew he got.

The reason I decided to swim out was, well, I hadn't swam in the ocean yet since I'd got to Fiji, and my shirt stank of mildew, having been washed in Suva, but put in a bag for three days instead of drying, because it was constant rain.

I swam back and dripped dry in front of the fire dancers and the cover band while the Birmies all chatted about home. I was making eyes with short girl with short hair with a mean expression on her face and a gorgeous friend with a significant butter face.

Finally, Vic pulled me out of my shell and got me talking politics. Apparently, they teach it in school over in britain that the moon landing was faked. And people are pretty much into whatever conspiracy is out there, foreswearing the Da Vinci Code and Fahrenheit 911, but then quoting from them.

Matty said, "The thing is, in America, you have no independent media." I just laughed. He'd been quoting things directly from the America media obtained secondhand, via his State owned media monopoly. I told him all the media was independent, except for one network, and that was controlled by the opposition party, not the government. I told him even if all the networks really were pawns, that we even have the BBC and Al Jazeera.

He said that he didn't mean the BBC, so I asked if he meant Murdoch's News Corp (Fox here.) No, he meant like Channel 4. He didn't even konw that that was a part of the BBC.

Anyway, we got along well. The came aboard the next day and I went swimming in the reef all morning. I went ashore to get a drink to wash the salt out of my mouth just in time to see the short haired girl saying goodbye to all the staff, and asking for one gal by name. She must have been there a while. She even said goodbye to me, and then just before getting on the ferry, turned around and took my picture.

Maybe I was just in the middle of the frame. Anyway, I swam back out to the boat and we puttered along to Nadi.