sometimes in life you just have to say........ heck with it. side note, sailors have a more colorful version of the saying but thats besides the point. As some of you may know I have been working on my equipment because it wont. and my plan was to not leave the ship and work day and night to get everything back up and running. currently I am about half way there. Earlier today one of my buddies poked his head into the shop and asked what I was doing today though Everyone knew what I was doing. you see, he has been pestering me to go out and take a break from work and relax. As it just so happened that was exactly what he was doing right then. He told me he needed someone to go to the waterfall with and that his liberty buddy was not planning on coming back but he was. Now first he used the guilt trip thing and second unbeknownst to him I love waterfalls. So I asked how long it would take and he said a couple hours and I reluctently said fine. so off the ship we go.
Now as with most plans in my life lately I quickly found out that these "plans" are little more then vague thought fragments that have not really colested into a true thought non the less a plan. He pulls out a scrap of paper that has directions to this waterfall that mention places we have no idea where they are. first things first, find a taxi. Easy enough, we walk up to one and I ask how far to the waterfall. he says its on the other side of the island and that would be 400 rupies. that was too rich for our blood so we go to a local restaraunt and eat and think about it. I come up with the idea that the bus from the ship drops us off at a hotel on the other side of the island and its free. Thinking that we would be closer it would be cheaper plus that hotel has tortoises, the big old kind. My favorite, not those young crazy tortoises. So we catch the bus check out the old guys and walk up to the taxi and ask how much to the waterfall. This time its 500 rupies. confused we ask where it is. Turns out the island is shaped like a triangle and we have now been to every side but the one the waterfall is on. figuring if 400 is too much 500 is way to much so we decide to chill at the hotel cause its right on the beach and he wanted to swim in the indian ocean.
he swims, I relax, we decide to check out the rest of the beach. As we walk down the beach I bring up the parasailing thing they have here but he thought it would be to expensive. as we walk up on it business is dead and we are greeted quickly in that over vealous used car salesman manner which is very common pretty much anywhere in the middle east and african countries. he says 40 dollars for 10 minutes we walk some more and I tell him if you do it I will pay for the meals because all he had was 40 dollars and that was enough for him to strap up and fly the friendly skies. so he hooks up and sails around the bay high up in the air all the while I am taking pictures and laughing. next thing you know couple more sailors come up seeing mccowan doing it and they give it a try and then another one for a couple hours they were running non stop and mccowan thinks we should get a kick back for all the business we started.
After a few hours roaming the beach we come back to the hotel and find a bunch of our friends swiming in the pool so we chilled by the pool as more people came up. Some of them ended up going to the waterfall and it turns out it was nothing more then a downhill stream and less a waterfall so in the end I think we made out pretty well. didn't pay way to much for a taxi had some good local food, parasailed and walked along a very nice beach and saw alot of beautiful things. talked to a tortoise and got to get off the ship and relax for awhile.
Its funny really. In the end though I ended up spending about 7 hours that I could of been working, McCowan went out of his way to make sure I got off the ship and relaxed. Good people, sometimes they are hard to find but you know them when you see them. After we got back to the ship I thanked him for draggin me along and he said no problem you needed it. So it comes full circle in the end I guess sometimes you do just have to say heck with it and go out and have fun. As with everything, things will work themselves out in the end if you let it.
Time is drawing near and soon the light at the end of the tunnel will start to show. Its been a long haul and more so then I thought it would be. I look forward to see you all soon though its still a ways out :) Take care and be safe.
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