----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Walsh
Sent: 02/03/14 06:13 PM
To: Patricia/Jack D. Butler
Subject: Please wish your mother the very best on her birthday, and...
In case you might be interested please find below my tale of Agony and Ecstasy
The trip has been going pretty well so far. Compared to other cruises we have done, this ship and the way that it’s organized falls considerably short in a variety of ways. Even its strengths are built on relative weaknesses.
The tours that we have taken at various stops so far on this trip have ranged from unextraordinary to miserable. On Easter Island we couldn’t hear the guide. In Fiji the virtually unaccompanied tour of a beautiful, Gauginesque orchid garden was followed by a visit to a “modern” Fiji tribal village that seemed more like a well kept trailer park…without the trailers…than a traditional village. Along with the mountains, a four-wheel drive tour of Moorea featured the driver’s son wearing a graphically decorated R+-rated tee shirt of two women in stockings and corsets making out. The tour was fine but the thirteen year old was a bit disconcerting). You get the idea.
Then came our first day in Auckland and a whole afternoon spent sailing on a 1995 America’s Cup competition twelve-meter yacht. Judy chose to stay on land. On the basis of prior experience I would not have been surprised if we had spent fifteen minutes motoring out, fifteen minutes lolling around the harbor, and fifteen minutes motoring back. The surprise came at the other end of the scale.
Of course we did motor out. It’s a ten million dollar boat, after all. But then we put up its giant mailsail, unfurled the jib and we were off for about three hours of heavy-duty, heeled over, high speed sailing. The sun was shining, the wind was brisk and that boat hauled ass (to use a technical term). Part of the time we were just passengers, some (including me) took turns at the helm but the most active and vigorous part of it was manning (and womanning) the grinders that control the sheets and lines, providing a tactile sense of what it might be like to actually compete in one of these boats. In the process of hauling in the main sheet with one of my partners, I found myself replaying in my mind the videos I’d seen of young, fit, muscular men training for the America’s Cup. Notice the adjectives… young, fit, muscular. Natural drugs (like adrenalin) can deceive the predisposed to believe that somehow all that training and preparation is so much window dressing. And, if one wants to make believe that one is forty years younger (or fifty), could there possibly be a painful consequence to follow? Ummm…yes. The answer to that question is yes!
The consequence began to be felt about twelve hours later and a few hours after that it was in full, ultra-inflamed flower. My wrists were such that using a door knob, much less opening a childproof pill box to get to an anti-inflammatory was almost impossible. But that pill box was definitely opened!
No surprisingly, Auckland has a wonderful maritime museum that deserves a whole day visit instead of the couple of hours we spent there. It is a lovely, clean, vibrant city.
That’s it for now.