PRESSURE COOKER

After an extended but involuntary stay in US, 11 days in and around the LA terminal, also called LA-LA-Land, my friend Paul invited me to San Francisco to stay at his place. The first few days I spent in sight of Signal Tower and near the Golden Gate Bridge where all the docks are located. A historic place with interesting, some fascinating stories to boot, friendly people and on the other side cops who showered Occupy Wall street demonstrators with a good dose of pepper spray to express the government’s view about peaceful demonstrations. When I arrived at Paul’s place in Discovery Bay, the excitement of being close to the action subsided and gave way to another kind of peacefulness; that of there is nothing going on like in SF. A gay couple living in the place was to be my company until I could return to Tahiti. Their demonstration was not punctuated with pepper spray but with slamming doors and out of control swearing when one of the boys was upset about the other. One was reserved, the other insistently full of help to display his knowledge about everything. On days when they were not arguing, they were like ghosts and I felt to be alone in the house. A few times they called me for supper which was about midnight and then the younger boy worked in the garage till about 0400h in the morning with the electric door going up and downright under my room with a sound of a Russian T 34 and made me recall some hard times. Kenny, one of the boys lent me one day a bicycle to use when I needed some shopping done and when I wanted to use it the second time I needed to search for it since he was not around to ask where it was. I found it, used it and returned it to where I found it. The next time I wanted to use it it was locked and when I asked if I could use it, he told me it was not working, something broke he said. So I walked 7 km one way and returned with the goods dragging on the street because my arms got stretched that much. Kenny’s partner asked me why I did not take the bike and I told him what Kenny said. He’s gotten angry and confronted Kenny and that got another round of door banging until I told Kenny that I would talk to Paul if he does not cut that out. That got him to apologize like a nun caught sinning. He offered me chocolate candy, help with anything including good advice and I informed him I liked him better when he slammed doors. When around the Christmas holidays the boats in the slough paraded their lights, he wanted to know what I would like as a present for Christmas and he was upset about me telling him that I don’t celebrate Christmas but Solstice. During the day when I felt alone in the house, I played pool and got a bit better and when he felt like playing he challenged me for a game. His style was to slam the balls like he slammed doors and I asked him if he does that with everything. His answer was that that’s the way his partners like it. When finally the day came for me to leave, I felt like stepping out from a dark cloud into sunshine. Paul’s house is beautiful but filled to the roof with clouds with the young man in it. The flight to LA was short and there was a bit of confusion at the counter when I checked in but in the end I boarded the plane and returned to Tahiti.

Kenny

Patricia the Hungarian girl in Bora Bora

Cook Island Queen

The Marsters Family on Palmerston Atoll, Cooks

Muri on Rarotonga

I write this from memory because I really did not have much time and to run to the internet cafe in French Polynesia and it is prohibitively expensive. After returning from the States to Raiatea I looked after my boat. My friend Jako did a wonderful job keeping the boat afloat by pumping out the water twice a day every day. I still owe him a lot of wine for that. also my friend Alfonce was happy to see me as was I; we have great philosophical talks whenever we meet and he took me fishing one day to go after fish living in 300 meter deep water. He baited the hooks and I managed to catch one while he got 8. Their eyes popped out of their heads when they came up on the surface and it did not appeal much to my sensitive nature but he grinned from ear to ear. The real fun was when I TRIED TO GET THEM WITHOUT THE BAIT. Oh, Alfonce will never let me live it down. I was sure the bait was sucked off the hooks, these fish were trained in the way of Tao and knew who was after them, no doubt in my mind, but he insisted I did not bait the hook. I still smile thinking about our jokes. Then there is Sensei Fabien who is the instructor of the Budo school in Uturoa. He allowed me to train in his classes and after 12 years of not practicing martial arts I felt very out of form. Nevertheless, he was kind and patient with me and I became good friends with the whole team and one of the younger students by the name Heiki became my special training partner. Sensei Fabien is a veterinarian by trade and is a kind man and I feel the strongest desire to return to Raiatea and live there and practice there because of the friends I made there. What I most liked about the Leeward Islands was the relative closeness of Huahine, Taha'a and Bora Bora. only a day away by boat, the lagoon with its relative calm waters and the friendliness of the people in spite of the French presence. Their generosity is legendary and I had felt more welcome there than any other place on this planet with perhaps the one exception of the Marquesas and Moorea. My intention is to travel to Vanuatu and from there to the Philippines and on to Thailand to see what is there and if it is just so-so I will go back to Polynesia to live. A doctor Baud was also a great man to mention. We became friends and after he purchased a boat he wanted me to teach him to sail but what he lacked was not the sailing part but the use of the engine and navigation, He also expected me to do repairs on his boat regardless of the work I had with my boat and in the end that friendship got clouded over by his expectations of me. Too bad because I liked him the way he was. For a few days I worked with a cruising couple from Germany and when I met them the first time in Hiva Oa we started a friendship and it was great to see them again in Raiatea. Wasabi is the name of their boat and it is Heribert and Hildegart who gave me some work that helped me greatly to earn some money. Heribert was also in Bora Bora and we tried to figure out how to get the GPS working on the computer and thanks to him it does. At this time I'm in Fiji and waiting for my pension to be paid by Canada but so far it has not happened. I have left Raiatea sometime in July and sailed to the Cook Islands. Neptune is wearing it for a crown on Wednesdays I suppose. The trip was exciting; winds 25 knot and again, it ripped my fixed main sail about 30 nm West of Bora Bora and I powered back there to get some calm waters to fix it. There I met a young woman from Hungary with a great child and she assisted with the sewing of the sail and made some Hungarian food I did not eat since I left from Hungary when I was still a child. It was difficult to leave but my time to stay in French Polynesia expired and I needed to go. With not a word do I want to mention that I fell in love with her and the kid. Two days out again, the mainsail ripped in 25 knot winds and I continued sailing with the Genoa and made still more than 7 knots. In fact, I even got 11 knots with a partially ripped, yeah, you read that right, Genoa. My average speed was 7.3 knots all the way to the Cook Islands. On my arrival I contacted the harbor authorities and informed them about my presence and they gave me instructions to contact Avatiu harbor. Starting the engine I discovered I lost the propeller. This seems to get to be a habit. A tug towed me into he harbor and did a bit of damage to the bow fitting and the quay did a number on the port side of Symbiosis in the neighborhood of about $1500 US. I tried to get another dock to be tied on to but they had other big ships coming in and needed the rest of the harbor. For a whole week I tried every possible trick to keep away from the wall but the northern wind kept blowing right into the marina and kept doing the damage. That is when I decided to move to the South-Western part of the Rarotonga where some small islands gave a good protection from wind but the entrance was tricky and very narrow, the depth only 1.7 meters at high tide. During entering I did touch bottom twice but finally got into deeper water and tied up to a mooring ball left there by previous cruisers. My impression of the Cook Islands is good and I happened to be there in August and they celebrated their Constitution day and the festivities were something to see. I had met some very interesting characters there I will talk in detail in my next book. A month later I left with a big cargo and a husband and his wife, Andy Duncan and Kathy to Palmerston Atoll after I mounted the spare prop and on the way to Palmerston one blade fell off the feathering prop and the unbalanced shaft beat the hell out of the cutless bearing and the bushing and since then I could not use the engine for propulsion and done the consequent trips on sail alone. On the return to Rarotonga the roller furling broke and the newly repaired jib ripped in heavy winds 25 nm SE off Palmerston. We decided to return to Palmerston. The guys in Palmerston helped me to jury rig the boat, fix the sail by giving me one they have salvaged from another wreck and I left for Rarotonga under sail, leaving the crew to wait for another vessel to return to Rarotonga with them. Winds were blowing 25-30 knots from the South-East and the waves about 3.5 meters. At around 1900h a rogue hit the boat just as I laid down to rest. The sound of the wave was like a full broadside salvo and laid the boat on her side with the mast touching the water and filling the interior knee deep with water. It washed me over the side and in desperation I grabbed for something and got a hold if the lifeline, pulled myself back onto the boat and surveyed the new damage. The boat was rearranged. I had agreed to take back some cargo to Avatiu, Rarotonga and that included two large propane tanks and some packages. The tanks were lashed on deck, one port the other starboard and now they piled up on the starboard side, the outboard engines were gone and the propane bottle I had for cooking was gone, mainsail ripped and the lower shroud on the port side broken. All goods inside were now untidy on the floor and the settee. This called for a long day of work. I was wet, tired and pissed off. Over this the wind came from the direction I needed to go and forced me to go SW and that put the strain on the starboard side and allowed me to jury rig the broken shroud on the port side. As I sailed on south Neptune must have gotten into a compassionate mood because the wind gradually changed from SE to East then NE to N and eventually at the latitude of Rarotonga to West and I arrived at Avatiu harbor 5 days after my excepted date to hear that a lot of people had already began to celebrate my demise. I had to inform them to postpone the celebrations until the confirmed facts indicated my death. A week later again I left for Palmerston to deliver some things like 400 liters of gasoline, two small and two large propane tanks and a weather forecast calling for strong winds from the north. What I got was swells from all corners, confused seas and square waves all the way to Palmerston. The repaired mainsail ripped again on the way, a second rogue hit the boat again and I arrived tired and beaten up like a price boxer after a bout with Mohamed Ali. At Palmerston my friends helped me to recover, sewed my sails, fed me, provided me with propane for cooking and other things and I set sails again for Fiji. A word about the population of Palmerston; The inhabitants are the descendants of a William Marsters who sired 27 children with three wives and there are now three families, all from the same family, who govern the whole atoll, seventy of them now. They are very generous and friendly folks and I celebrated my 65th. birthday with them, Andy and his wife their anniversary and it drove tears into my eyes. They have worked hard to help me and I can recommend only to visit there and experience their kindness first hand. I zig-zagged my way to Fiji and although I would have loved to see Niue and Tonga's Va-vau Group, I made it to Vanua Levu, Fiji's NW second large Island where I am now in Savusavu at Waitui Marina, awaiting the end of the world and the cyclone season; But hey, why am I repeating myself? There is a lot of repairs to be done before I can continue to Vanuatu and see what's next. I also need to have my eye surgery done because in fact I'm blind by any standards. The surgery will be done in February and until that is not done, I can't leave. I noticed how my eyesight got worse and worse since I left Mexico but since Tahiti my right eye was completely finished and the left had only 20/60. Now if I don't have bright light, I cannot see faces at 3 meters, cataract is the name, stumble into people is the game. If the computer did not have a bright background I could not write this. A week ago we had a visitor, T.C. Evan and had a hell of a ball. We danced for two days and a night then he left to do his thing somewhere else and we are cleaning up after him, Nobody want to see him again but as they say; the dance is not over until the fat lady swings.

MISSING

Four weeks ago I offered Chris, a sailor who arrived with a boat from Galapagos under sail with a seized engine, S/V “Stargap” under command of Captain Bryan from South Africa and two more crew members, Daniel and Coby, a berth on my vessel and possible a trip to the main island, called North America by other than sailors. During our conversations I found out, he was a missionary for some Christian church he did not care to mention. We had some interesting talks, to say the least, as we were on absolute opposing sides. To my question if he was aware of the deadly and destructive impact missionaries had on native populations, he replied; they were saved by the mercy of Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice for the love of mankind. After that I requested not to talk about religions and we had a cease-fire peace and things were more civil. As crew he was a reliable person and on occasions we had some good laughs about some things but I had to watch what kind of humor to use and it limited my usual carefree ways as I can imagine also his love to talk about his bible. Before Chris joined us, I had Eric Stalwagen on “Symbiosis” for a pending delivery job to San Diego and he is not into religion either, so Chris must have felt outnumbered and left the boat on his own or cocooned himself on deck whenever he could, with his books.
Then I decided to see Moorea and Chris wanted to assist another Captain, Kirk of S/V “Discovery” who offered him a position on his vessel as crew to New Zealand, to install an anchor winch and stay on his boat.

When Eric and I returned from Moorea, Eric went ashore to do some shopping, and when he came back, surprised me with an announcement about the missing of Chris for several days. Chris wanted to hike up to the ridge of the mountain and stay over night and return to “Discovery” the next day. For days we have talked with the authorities, among the cruisers as what we could do, perhaps organize a search party, but none of us knows the area and the Gendarmerie is doing all they can on this case.
This Sunday it will be two weeks of his disappearance and none here believe him to be found alive. I hope he’s found his heaven. One of the things we said as a joke was; see Tahiti and die, but I never thought he would take it serious. We all feel the loss of a fellow sailor; may he return a butterfly.

Shark encounter

Shark encounter
Moorea is just 15 nm downwind or leeward, as we sailors
would say, some may say it is west, but hey, it’s the same in
the end. From Tahiti it was just another Island and it has
been luring me to go there since Mexico and for more than a
week I looked at it, thinking of it as my new home, and it
seem to get closer to that reality, as the German embassy is
working to get my German Passport and perhaps even the
Hungarian too. I’ve been told because I did not file a request
to cancel my citizenship when I became Canadian, I still
have it. That, indeed, is great news and will make living in
Fr. Pol. possible.
Looking at Moorea for this long time, without money, no
work, except for the two massages, I set sail to the Island of
my dreams with a Dutch friend, Erick, and with little wind an
a lot of motor, we made the trip in 3 hours. Sailing into Cook
Bay is easy and the edges of the reef are well marked, with
a leading line and range lights, anybody could do it. Erick is
good crew and we set anchor in 12 meter water close to the
Bali Hai hotel, next to another known character, Bruce on
S/V Loki, named after a Norse God of mischief. Erick and I
went ashore to do some internet and I found a mail from my
daughter, demanding in a thinly veiled tone to make sure I
will deliver her jacket she forgot on my boat and find out if
indeed my ex-girlfriends cat could be taken on a plane to
Canada. Oh, how I will miss that cat.
I replied to her letter and then went to watch a much more
pleasant show on DVD about people in jail being beaten and
abused.
On Sunday we decided to see some sharks and swim with
them and some Stingrays, sliding up our legs and letting us
pet them. I managed to touch a shark with my hand and its
skin felt like sandpaper and it bolted off like a stung cat.
There were about 10-15 all around us from about 5’-15’
(1.5-3.0m) big and it was not a bit dangerous as some
stupid movies would have you believe. I dove with
hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos and nothing happened
there either. There is a possibility, sharks want to clean their
reputation and present themselves from their best sides or
they just eat tourists, in which case I admire their choice of
selectivity. They certainly taste better after the sharks
scared the crap out of them. I’m sure Hannibal Leckter
would agree.
The Stingrays were as big as a kitchen table and when they
touched, it was like gentle hands were caressing the body.
This brings to mind a question, I wont say from whom, if
fish have teeth, and from my observations I can say: most
living beings, especially the bigger ones, most certainly have
teeth, with the exception of hockey players perhaps, and if
they decide to eat you, they will use them, unless somehow
they learned to manage knife and fork.
Then I met a pro kite surfer by the name of Tamataro who’s
got to be the worlds best kite surfer. He is the one who
surfed over the Golden Gate Bridge in SF. Now, that’s
awesome. I am looking forward to learn this kind of surfing
and take lessons from him when I got settled here.

Manifestation.

After leaving from Manihi in the Tuamotus, enroute to Tahiti, I stabbed my toe on a block and broke a toe. Nothing new, but painful still. Fixing it with masking tape, intended for use on other things but broken toes, I set sail to Rangiroa in hopes to have someone looking at it. Well, someone looked at it all right, handed me some more masking tape, just what I was looking for, and advised me to take it easy. I would have loved to go snorkeling there as I heard wonderful things about their drift-dives but could not put on fins, for goodness sake, I could not even row the dinghy, and so I became a prisoner aboard Symbiosis. My plan, to arrive in Tahiti just a couple of days after my daughter, had to be canceled. The time I had on my hand now, I used to rearrange the boats inside as I had now more space. The winds inside the atoll blew with about 15 knots and if my toe would not have been broken, I could have rowed the dinghy ashore and send a message to Jeanette about the delay but it did not let off. I waited and when the wind finally eased, I left this lovely place. Once outside the atoll, the winds were coming from the NE, made for a good ride, but I had to hand steer most of the time and it made it impossible to rest. At night it occurred to me, to rig the wind vane and see if it would do the job as it was supposed to and it seemed to hold course and I stretched out on the cockpit seat and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes an hour later, the trim tab jumped the groove and floated on its pendant like a hooked fish, faithfully in the wake of Symbiosis. The course was steady 360 degrees instead of 215. After resetting the course, installing the trim tab, trimming the vane and relieving myself, I returned to my place and kept an eye on the steering unit for an hour. It held its course. I closed my eyes to rest. Again, awakening about an hour later I found the boats course to be a steady 360 degrees. The trim tab was still in place. The conclusion is; the boat wants to go to the North Pole and just waits for me to close my eyes to change course. I guess it’s a battle of wills.

In the late afternoon I sighted land, Tahiti, and watching it, my thoughts turned to my childhood dreams, when I first heard about Tahiti and how much I wanted to one day see it and live there, how my dreams turned into reality. In the evening I entered the Passe de Taunoa and turned starboard toward an industrial area, winding channel, no lighted markers and almost running into a reef, managed to find an area to set anchor and sleep. There was no one in the area where I anchored and I found out later; it is not allowed to anchor there because it is a shipyard. It makes no difference to a dead-tired sailor, but nevertheless, I weighted the anchor and followed my track out the harbor and into the entrance to Papeete, followed south along the airstrip and ended up in marina Taina. This happened to be in the morning hours before I had any breakfast and to my surprise, there is a voice sounding just like that of my daughter. Poking my head out from the hutch, there is Jeanette in the flesh, in a dinghy with a fellow names Mike from a boat called “This side up” I saw first time in Hiva Oa.
They hooked up and Irma, my ex-partner, will sail with him to New Zealand while Jeanette will be with them for a while in this area until she returns to Canada, unless a shark will get to her before she can make her escape.
So, here I am, without crew, no computer I can use to navigate with and no paper charts from the area other than small scale, lots of detail but useless for longer passages.
A very good friend has sent me some money to prevent me from eating my socks, (I run out of shoes) and now as I’m getting popular doing massages, I am able to buy some delicacies like bread and butter and food for my and Irma’s cat. In case I find a boat to sail to the mainland, I will leave my boat here for a few weeks while getting my account reactivated in Canada and then return.
Ah, the adventures one has when one has decided to be free.

To disappoint optimists.

Some optimist expected us, I think me in particular, to get lost at sea on the way to the South Pacific, but I'm happy to foil their expectations. Rumors of our demise are vastly exaggerated. Yes, we did have a long passage due to light winds, a barnacle encrusted hull, a lost propeller in the doldrums and ripped sails, but we are still among the living, unless we managed to look dead very convincingly after five weeks of bobbing, running out of propane to cook anything warm and living on nuts, dried fruit and chocolate covered raisins, a hard life, indeed. My partner has never sailed before on the open ocean, has panicked only once...every five minutes and to my delight, survived the ordeal and when we finally sighted land, shed tears of joy and promised never to put her feet on a boat again. I still have to finish the trip and get to Tahiti but when we arrive there, she will never have to sail again.
Coasting around the eastern end of Hiva Oa, Marquesas, in the late afternoon, we decided not to make land fall until the following morning and hove to. At daybreak we continued toward Atuona and around 10:00h in the morning we got radio contact with a vessel named "Imagine". A man by the name Bruce organized a tow for us into the harbor and assisted in setting out our stern anchor and welcomed us to Polynesia with french bread, pampelmouse, butter and to my relief, no dance. Another boat , "Wasabi", lent us his propane bottle and we enjoyed a hot cup of tea after almost two weeks of abstinence.
We decided to go for a little walk on the island to see if the legs would be able to carry the rest of our body and to my surprise, they did, but, oh boy, what a pitiful sight we were, walking like drunks and grinning like imbeciles.

Jeanette, my daughter, joined us in Nuku Hiva and has lost her sea-legs and now moves on the boat like a seal, nose close to the rail, ready to share her breakfast with the fish, which she did with relentless vigor, a noble action and very entertaining. For some time I wondered what some folks meant when commenting on the vertical racing decor on the side of the hull, until I found some bits and pieces and recognized them as foodstuff when surveyed the vessel.
I still enjoy the ocean but have acquired a symptom known as ogre-ism according to my crew and tempers are flaring like sudden solar spots. But we will not let that spoil the taste of the soccer-size grape fruits, the sweet mangoes, breadfruit, passion fruit and other assorted delicacies.
The trip itself was great. We had no storms although the waves were about 10-15 feet and we had sometimes a day with about 20-25 knots of wind but nothing serious. That is of course not the opinion of my partner and she thought the waves were crazy.
My frustrations were with the slow speed of the boat because of the growth on the bottom, we could not do better than 5 knots at best. In the doldrums we cheered when we got 2 knots.

The Way to Paradise.

In our quest to happiness we’ll find no fact so true,
The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.
No words, no hints, no stories told will ever be as real,
Just the act of daring, facing our fears, can truly tell the tale,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

It all begins so easy, high hopes and dreams and trembling hearts,
And yet, in the pit of our bellies are knots, dark shadows, the unknown,
Expectations, worries, nagging thoughts, all a cause of sleepless nights.
Will the journey we prepare truly be as we plan, or will it go as well?
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

To taste life in its many ways, we must have courage, to break limits,
Embrace sights along the way, watch the fears, Forever it’s the same.
The path is not the one we know, not for the faint at heart or timid,
Just the act of daring, facing our fears, can truly tell the tale,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

Winds, waves, the darkness of the night, Sounds that can’t be right,
It’s new and frightening, looking for security, holding hands so tight,
Deep inside a doubt arises, did I really want to do this trip with you?
But fear is not geography, something we need to solve alone and well.
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

Heavy seas, a rolling deck, slipping, sliding, handling sails at night,
snagging lines, snapping, flogging ceaselessly, asking all our skills.
Never a moment silence or rest, escape from all the work and swell
Death glaring at our back, waiting for an opening, never out of sight,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

Finally, land rises from the sea, a sob escapes the throat,
a tear, falling so hot, it burns. A smile as wide as garden gates,
forgotten are the sleepless nights, the hardships for a while,
relief floods through the veins like vine, nothing matters, ring a bell,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

The mates we meet, who share our dreams, just maybe for a while,
Who’re going through the same old fear, to deal with it in their own time
Understand, the enemy is not our mate, the sea or ship, but our fear.
It’s inside our very being, bringing light to the heart is our task and do it well,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

Chapter Two

Chapter 2

ALIEN?

I falsely presumed to have originated on this planet, but that assumption was corrected about the age of four when my alleged parents told me the truth. A stork had delivered me to them from another galaxy, which accidentally dropped me on the Earth.
Reluctantly I admitted the possibility, after observing the predominant species on this planet. Although I looked like them, there seemed to be emerging evidence that I was different. The herd mentality is still very strange to me, as I did not like to be in big groups. Moreover I don't have the tendency to self-destruction, and I like to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
It was a very lonely time while growing into my teenage years. I wanted to be like other kids, but they must have known of my off-world origin, because they picked me last for soccer teams even though I wasn’t the worst player. I seldom had more than one friend at a time, and seemed to see things that others did not. For example I noticed that it was not raining between the raindrops, and that a glass filled half full with water was also half empty.
Indeed, a friend of mine got very upset about my observations, and informed me that was the reason nobody liked me. At first I thought he meant they did not like me because the glass was half empty or only half full, but then he clarified that it was because I did notice both, and they did not. Hardly my fault, I thought, all they had to do is to take notice by looking, but it was too late. My reputation as being strange escalated into "weird" and "out of this world" in a negative way. I became known as "the spaced out kid" or "Sputnik" for short.
In order to live with such people I went undercover. I did the same things as them so I would not be discovered to be an alien, although I was not convinced yet of my alien status. As years went by I felt more and more a stranger, and noticed in conversation with others that I was not interested in talk about trivial things. Who was who in the music world or in sports, when and how many goals someone scored, just left me cold. On the other hand, I was interested in discussions about how big the universe is, or when God started his life and who created him. This was definitely not the way to break down my fellow schoolmates' suspicion about me, and reading science fiction stories did not help either.
My popularity was limited to stirring up the teachers, particularly Father Juergen, a corpulent man who was easier to jump over than to go around, and who had a voice that reminded me of the chirping of a sparrow just before the cat got hold of him! The way he moved about in front of his desk in sudden spurts as much as his mass allowed, his head jerking and swiveling on a thick double chin, brought out my cat nature and tempted me to take a swipe at him. His piggish eyes, with heavy bags of dark rings fitting his red thin remnants of hair, were arched in an inquisitive way as he waited for questions he could authoritatively answer.
Except for my questions that is. To this day I'm convinced he would have loved for me to be put in a cauldron with boiling water like a side of pork, so he could watch me squirm. No wonder I put my most challenging questions to him, it was a match made in heaven and the other students loved the way the class went when he and I had our battles. They just sat back or played battleship.
My other victim, our history teacher, loved asking me questions. I answered with a question of my own which he refused to answer, and instead he insisted it was important to remember when Charles Charlemagne became king of the Franks. I wanted to know for whom it was important. It didn't seem important to me, and what relevance did it have for this moment? The war was on, and we created history instead of digging up bones!
In one instance we had a discussion about borders. My point of view was that borders were artificial man-made divisions because people did not want to share with others what they had, and so created enemies. He rejected this with a wave of his hand; saying "why" was irrelevant because the fact is that there are borders. I replied that that will change with time, and perhaps one day there will be a world without borders. "Dream on", he said, and continued rattling off dates and events. I envisioned a unified Europe when I was twelve, and people laughed at me for saying it. Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but it is almost a fact now. Maybe it was only wishful thinking, or perhaps being an alien allowed me to see into the future?
To my delight I discovered some fellow aliens. They were also working undercover to change our species suicidal attitudes and greedy behavior, by giving living examples and advice on how to live in love and mutual respect for everything and everybody, authentically and with awareness for the benefit of existence. Death and destruction are poor alternatives. How much do we need and take with us, to die satisfied?
I embarked on my journey with a sailing vessel to learn more about this planet called Earth, also known as Gaia and Terra, and found it to be a place of great beauty that is attacked by the greed and ignorance practiced by its occupants and called “progress”. They make movies and write sci-fi stories about aliens attacking Earth and invariably are portrayed as the enemy. It's strange to see people looking for an enemy outside of themselves, fighting and killing each other to eliminate their foe, blaming others for their situation instead of looking inward where they would encounter the real enemy. They are destroying the planet they are living on, and it is not an enemy from outer space they need to worry about! They do a great job this far and we couldn’t do better even if we wanted to.
This planet is covered with water more than 70% and only about 1% is usable for everything that requires fresh water and the inhabitants are treating it as a garbage dump. Out of sight to them means it is gone. Fact is, all this usable water has been recycled since life on Earth began and in the meantime we put so much garbage into the water, air and soil that the filtering effect has been compromised to an extent that we now need to buy water in stores which has been artificially filtered to be consumable. In many places on this planet, I can assure you, my toilet is cleaner than the surrounding water! Remember: there is no water coming from an outside source to replace our dwindling supply of good, healthy water.
Slash and burn is practiced on land. Clear-cutting destroys habitat for all living beings including humans. Only mechanical robots don't need clean air to breathe. I like calling this planet Aqua-world because there is so much water. Many of those other aliens prefer to be on, near, or submersed in water, so there is a possibility where we come from is a water planet also.
However, I also met a great number of natives to this planet who are using floating vessels and enjoying the waters while adapted to the herd mentality with the attitudes of sheep. They allow others to think for them and to do as they please. This is similar to their land dwelling cousins who are satisfied with solid ground under their feet, and feel secure as long as there is nothing moving. Death is like that, not moving, stable and safe. Death seems to be the most desired condition for many. That might explain the self-destructive tendency. It is very evident in mass-opinions like politics, religions, cultural identities and worldviews. It can be found on football fields, sports arenas, in churches, temples and battlefields. Instead of teaching and promoting individuality, they created institutions called schools and universities where mass conditioning is carried out. Don't move your mind, don't rock the boat, and don't question authority!
Can you imagine the stupidity of priests blessing soldiers going to kill, writing bible versus on guns and bombs and tolerating it? As a matter of fact, it is defended as the right thing on mass media. If that is not the ultimate in religious stupidity and hypocrisy claiming to teach love, I don’t know what is.
The galaxy of my alien species discovered individuality as the preferred method of coexistence. We come together as individuals to perform a task that requires group effort. When the task ends, the group dissolves into individuals again, following their own bliss without a trace of herd mentality. We have no politicians, priests, bureaucrats, lawyers or leaders, and therefore we are not imbecile followers. We've learned to resolve our issues without the involvement of others who have nothing to do with the problem. We are not looking for who did what to take cheap revenge, but look at the problem and work together to fix it. The problem is the issue, not the person. People can be educated, not problems. We don't believe in punishment or rewards, or in inducing guilt and shame in others. We have no conformists. We keep no secrets from each other, because only the one who knows a secret benefits, and all others are left out. We understand that possessions create thieves therefore we share. There are no wars, no hunger, and no greed. Nobody has more rights because they have more than others; there is no privileged class.
If this sounds utopian, try a different approach to education. First you must educate your educators because ignorant educators can only teach ignorance. Ask yourselves why you'd place belief before knowledge. Believing is easy. All one needs to do is to tolerate being dunked under water and say: “I believe, I’m saved.” The only thing you will be saved from is the work required to think for yourself and acquire knowledge.
You know, one man with one eye may lead a million blind but will never follow a million blind. A person of knowledge will transcend beliefs. Remain inquisitive until there is no doubt left. Find out if what you've learned is indeed the truth, or if it may have changed over time. Any person who "knows" has a closed mind. Nothing is certain because everything changes, so remain open. Become role models, teach with your being, and remember, nobody ever learned swimming on dry land. How can you enjoy the sweet fruits of your own cherries if you plant thistles instead of cherry trees? Think about this.
Of course, it is not that easy to shed old habits, and I acquired many of them during my stay on this planet, being surrounded by humans and educated by them. But in the end I remembered that all I have been taught wasn't necessarily the truth. The problem isn't what I was taught; but rather that I believed it. Not that I had much choice. After all I did not have any other aliens around me, and if I did, did not recognize them at that time. It's nearly impossible when society's education puts a blindfold of ideas over one's eyes through which to see the world, and we grow up believing them and thinking we are thinking.
As it turned out, fortune led me to my parents. They had been educated Roman Catholics, and my father had been a soldier in the German army during the Second World War. During his service his beliefs had been shaken off, and he questioned everything that he heard and thought to be true. My mother still wanted to believe and searched for God in every religion, and found it nowhere. She insisted on me reading the bible every day. So on one side there was my mother who pushed me to read and believe the bible, on the other side was my father who warned me that living in Hungary under the communist regime, I would be subjected to brain-washing in school by listening to the same propaganda every day.
Four years of school in Hungary proved to have been enough for me to recognize (after our escape in 1956 to Germany) that the same thing happened in the church. On top of all that, now my soul was threatened with hellfire for eternity, if I did not believe the teachings of the priest. Siberia sounded better each day!
The questions I asked during religious studies were enough to arouse the suspicions of the priest, who had the ears of God and could sentence me to hell. I stopped caring what would happen when I discovered that he could not answer my questions, and just wanted me to stop asking them so he could continue with his lectures.
At the age of thirteen, after a determined refusal to go to church on my part, I wanted God to punish me with death so my mother would cry over my grave for trying to force me. Challenging God was the ticket. Shouting an insult of the worst kind I could come up with, and believe me, Hungarians have a monopoly on choice words when it comes to insults, I expected a lightning bolt to strike me as swift as a pick-pocket in the streets of Agassiz.
Strangely enough, no lightning struck, but instead I had the sudden recognition that there is no God outside of existence. All of existence including me is the same thing. There is nobody to punish or reward me.
This insight opened doors I never even knew were there, and when the police found me and took me home after my parents' alerted them to my disappearance, my mother thought I had a nervous breakdown after listening to what happened, and decided to have our priest look at me. After a 15 minute evaluation of my condition he put his hand around my neck, and with a red face demanded of my parents to have me undergo an exorcism because the devil got hold of me.
As my mother and father were more loving than the servant of God, they took me to a psychiatrist who listened to me for four hours telling him what I did, thought, felt and experienced that night in the park. He then called my parents and inquired from them if I had any Buddhist, Hindu or Eastern philosophy training. Of course not, we are Catholics. Why?
"Well", he said, "what I gather is that the things he says are eastern in concept but I need to see him a bit more to be sure." When they asked what he thought had happened to me, he answered: "Whatever happened to him, I wish it would happen to me!"
That episode of my life is etched in my memory. It has influenced my ways of thinking and observing events around me and has affected my path in life, especially around the issues of freedom, religion and education. When we are taught what to think, that is not freedom. Being taught how to learn is closer to it.
There are laws; civil laws, corporate laws, criminal laws etc. that mostly originate in some religious superstition about moral concepts and conduct. Some are based on common sense, but all are limiting freedom. At least common sense laws are arrived at by common agreements between different people, while the others are imposed.
Take the Ten Commandments; all of them suppress emotional expression. How on earth are you going to explore your potential if you have to stuff it down? How would you know how to correct an error, if you do everything right? How could you know what a mistake is? What is a mistake anyway, and how could you fix it and develop solutions if you won't experiment? We all are making mistakes, and when we use intelligence we learn from them. Too bad only a small percentage of humans are wise enough to do so.
Remember: A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor. We have to have challenges to grow and push the boundaries to discover new things and ways or we’ll grow stagnant. Remain inquisitive, it’s nature’s gift to us.
God never gave commandments, Moses did! It is said: God loves unconditionally so why would he give you commandments? Moses did that because he could not handle his sheep any longer. After 40 years of being too stupid to find his way out of the desert, his control over his flock was slipping out of his hands. He needed a law that cannot be questioned. He had been a lawyer at the court of the pharaoh before his odyssey, and that's what lawyers do, they insist on laws when intelligence fails. Moral of the story: Never leave it to a lawyer to find a way out of the desert!
So what is this lawyer guy to do? Call on a higher authority, that's what they do, even today. Stupid people never cease to amaze me. They are imbued with God's immortality. Nobody dares to question it. I remember a guy who answered me about why he believed in God? "Just in case", he said. Mind you, he kept doing all the things that will take one straight to hell according to the commandments. And so do millions, causing me to wonder why are they going to church and claim to be of any faith? Might as well use that time to make love to someone, at least it will be real fun.
All these fantasy ideologies have not created any peace and I daresay, do just the opposite, but humans cling to it as a monkey to a fistful of peanuts, even though their freedom and life depends on letting go.
There was a guy named Marx who said; "religions are the opiate of the masses" and another one said; "if one has science or art, he has religion". More likely if they don't have science or art, they have religion. On my planet we would choose art and science any day.
When sailing down the coast I ran into some heavy weather, and it put me in danger of losing my life every second for two days, and I remembered a priest saying "there are no atheists in foxholes". How would he know? He was never around those people when they died. How would he know unless they survived and then credited their escape with God's mercy? What kind of hogwash is that? During all those hours of howling winds, crushing waves and life threatening situations not once did I call on God or even though about it. I was too busy surviving.
Someone asked me if I was afraid and I answered no, I was too scared to be afraid. Scared that the boat would break, or that my daughter would be very upset over my lost at sea status. Was I afraid of dying? Hell no! I was more afraid of not living! And live I did, and still do. There will be time enough to relax from living when I'm dead, but I'll refuse to die before I've lived, and there is no better time than NOW to live because there are no other Now.
Death will come to all of us (except to Texans. If they cannot take it with them, they aint goin'!) And we never know when that moment comes so you might as well live now and enjoy every second fully aware, or you'll die regretting not having lived. Unawareness of living is the same as being dead. In an unaware state we hurt each other. Just imagine not having the chance to say you're sorry to someone you hurt before they die. Or imagine you wanted to see the world before you die, and you are dying with a million dollars on your bank account without having done so, because you were too busy piling up the money.
Death is the only certainty and once you fully understand that, you are free to live and be unconcerned about death. She will come regardless of who or what or where you are. Don't act dead while still alive. Live it up!

A Zen student asked his master: "Master how should one live his life?"
The master answered: "By preparing himself for death."
"But how can one prepare himself for death?" asked the student.
"By learning how to live." was the old man's reply.

Robin Williams, playing Patch Adams, used the words in a sense that death is not the enemy, indifference is. Why are we so afraid of death? It's the natural end of life. Let's be prepared for that.
This message is thousands of years old and we still do not understand it. Maybe we teach the wrong messages. Millions suffer fear from countless diseases, and the worst of them all is fear. In fact, fear causes most disease.
Religions induce fear if you don't believe what their leaders want you to believe, and induce hope for an eternal life if you do believe what they say. Some even promise a reward if you do their God's will, according to what they tell you God's will is. And then we are stressed out over which God is real, and what is the true will of Him, Her or It. Nothing kills better than stress.
What a big surprise when you arrive at the Pearly Gates and there are no virgins, no Saint Peter, just an old hag without teeth asking you to give her back her youth. Know that if a God wants something from you he or she will tell you that him or herself. Never let a person tell you what the will of God is. They only want you to further their objectives without putting themselves in danger. Don't be a sheep no matter what they promise you.
Our planet has no sheep, and nobody tells you what to do, what to think, or how to feel. We understand there is no right or wrong, because that would mean there is judgment. Situations exist, and if the situation is undesirable we change it when it is in the interest of all by consulting with each other for the highest good of all concerned, and act accordingly. We may not always come up with a solution that pleases everybody and then we sacrifice our idea in favor of the other and see what happens. There are no guaranties in anything, and knowing that allows for flexibility. That's why life is an adventure, or in the words of Forest Gump's mother, "Life's a box of chocolates". You never know what you'll get.
If I'd known what to expect on my travels, I would never have left. This world is the best so far. I've never learned this much about myself while living on land. There were always others around me whom I'd been busy observing and comparing myself with, and never had time to find out who I was. It took only three days alone in the open sea to find the person I searched for all my life, me.
I watched waves, clouds and the winds and there were no two the same. They mixed and formed other patterns, shapes and appearances, and reality was the result only in the moment, not in the past or the future. Patterns dissolve and form new patterns every second, and even that are too long a time span. It's like observing along a sharp knife-edge, without width.
Other things became clear to me also. The way reality is, or the way I see it, is the interference of waves from many sources. We all contribute, making waves of our own design, and the results of all those waves together create reality. Of course, what I think will affect reality, but so does everybody's thoughts, and the interference of all those thoughts is what reality is. Some are small, others huge but they all contribute to reality, and we are able to affect the size of those waves. We all need to learn about cause and effect so we can make wise choices.
Ah well, these are just my ideas and I will not claim them to be the truth. Surely these thoughts have been thought and observed before, but not by me. For me they are new and therefore significant insights. The good news is; if I can have them, anybody can have them too, and you don't even have to be an alien.

Hi, my name is Andre

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My name is André and I would like to invite you to join me on a journey as I sail the South Pacific. This will allow me to share a world of wonder, beauty, adventure and fun. As I travel I observe and write about my experiences and my first book, Oceanborne Madness??? is available on amazon.com, Trafford Publishers and Barnes & Noble where you may get an insight into my crazy views and, some say, inspirational ideas. See for yourself and make your comments as you please or contact me through my email.