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To add to Anne Fletcher’s answer, I too recall those years. I never used quill pens.They belonged to an era before my time as a kid.Here are two pictures of how they used to look. (From google)Instead, for the first few years we used pen-nib holders that looked something like this.They had to be dipped into a bottle of ink every few minutes. Ink spillage was a common problem.This was how the nibs used to look.Big shots were privileged to be equipped with something like the picture below.Ball point pens first made an entry in the late fifties or perhaps the early sixties in India but these pens were banned in school. They deserved to be. They were truly horrible. The ink inside was pasty and it used to dirty our shirt pockets and those ink stains could not be easily washed away in those days when washing machines did not exist (at least in India).Even those who had a decent handwriting spoilt it by using these pens.This was how the typical early ball point pens used to lookThe nibs would look and write like this:The ink would smudge the page. Sometimes if you wrote on one side of the page, a mirror reflection of the written content in not so faint ink, would be visible on the other side of the page. Teachers were instructed to confiscate any ball point pen they found with the students. Many students preferred them as they were convenient since they did not have to carry an ink bottle and the lazy ones found it easier to simply press down the plunger instead of having to unscrew the cap of the fountain pen and keep the cap safely without misplacing it and then screw it back later.Later I graduated from using pen nib holders to using fountain pens. It was a great status booster. Nearly all through school and college and even later I used different types of fountain pens.They wrote well. They wrote smoothly, and we used to have great handwriting. The pen being in two parts was just a minor inconvenience. Another was the necessity to fill ink frequently. There were days when we filled ink every day. In the mornings, winding up our spring hand watches and filling ink in the pen used to be a standard routine. To keep the cap of the pen always locatable many would push the cap of the pen on the opposite end of the nib but often these caps would loosen and fall down and roll away under the desks and the class would be distracted by the student kneeling under the desks to retrieve the cap. Often the pen itself would be dropped and with bad luck , the nib would be the first to touch the ground and be irreparably damaged. Parents would get irritated at the constant demand from the children for new fountain pens. Kids would often lose their pens, damage them or misplace them.Often there was jealousy and rivalry. “My pen is better than yours” was a popular dialogue among the senior students and this lead to demands from children for pens with more fancied brand names. Parents were not too keen. Fancied pens were costly and were lost or stolen with the same frequency as the normal pens.It was years before technology improved to a level that ball point pens became acceptable in schools and colleges.Even during the eighties nineties when ball point pens had almost completely replaced fountain pens, I stuck to using fountain pens. I carried four of them in my shirt pocket and their gleaming holding clips would look like an army man’s medals. One had red ink, one blue, one green and one had black. I used all four colours as a structural design engineer and later too as the head of the department. People often asked why I used four colours while every one else used blue and sometimes black.I would tell them that I used blue for general writing in my notebooks. We didn’t type on keyboards those days. I used black to make sketches on thin white paper or tracing paper as these yielded better and darker copies on those old ammonia printing machines. I used green to mark my comments on drawings and make notes in the margins before the papers were filed away. The green colour would make it clear that it was my comment and not another’s. I used red colour to mark corrections (as against comments) in drafts and drawings. It worked well for me, but many of my colleagues told me that I was overdoing it. I didn’t mind the slight inconvenience of having to choose the appropriate pen for the appropriate task. I would tell my friends to simply forgive this eccentricity.I still maintain that a good fountain pen is the best instrument for writing and if I had opportunities these days to write more I would go back to my old expensive fountain pens that I have safely locked away. These days I hardly write, but merely put my signature. Till some time ago, I was at least filling up forms. Nowadays even the forms are online. With digital signatures too coming soon, I wonder if even signing my long name with a flourish will be a pleasure that I will be deprived of.Any way, I am keeping my old cherished pens (Pilot, Parker, Mont Blanc, Sheaffer) Along with my slide rule that I used for computations, I would like to leave these for posterity as family heirlooms. May be some future generation will auction it for millions of Rupees (in new notes please, not the old ones)GV

Everything ended well-Joe Biden became president. And also about how my university classmate, a long-time user of this social platform, got involved in this case.Now you can tell the story of how there was another suspicion of Russian interference in the US presidential election using the Social platform Quora.Instagram Facebook pages, but he is especially active on Quora. My experience in propaganda has taught me to quickly analyze the stories that the powerful feed to the world. For you guys, I can explain Russia, the USSR, and communism. I watched how firmly the government held on in Moscow. I'll explain everything to you. He introduced himself rather catchily: "I know the propaganda. Among the users of this platform, Dima was known as an expert on the USSR and modern Russia. This social platform is based on the principle of asking questions and getting answers.Dima also signs his publications enticingly for foreigners: "former head of the propaganda department from the USSR." don't think that Dima is a braggart. In 2018, Quora recognized Dima as the best writer out of tens of thousands of users.He really confirms what he said.This is not surprising. But his hands still reaching for the handle, pen to paper, that is, hands reach for the keyboard…Later, he went into business. After the liquidation of the USSR, he was left with a broken trough and for some time did not know how to make ends meet. In the second half of the 80s, Dima headed the department of the Scandinavian countries of the Press Agency "Novosti".A couple of years ago, Dima began to communicate with an American woman. If in 2017, Tara Reid tweeted in support of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, then at the end of 2018, she was already speaking out against “anti-Russian propaganda " in America.Communication with the Russians influenced the behavior of the American woman, it was emphasized in the newspaper publication. In the spring of 2020, the New York Times published an article accusing a woman, Tara Reid, of having ties to" Soviet propagandists.""Why would a Liberal Democrat support Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin? "Maybe because I believe that he has saved the world from a great conflict more than once.” "- she wrote in an essay on the social platform Medium.She repeated this essay on Quora, where she followed three reports, all focused on Russia, including self-proclaimed former "Soviet propagandists" and "Russian national conservatives" who claimed that " Ukraine's anti-Moscow regime was a Biden puppet. She also told her readers about a Russian man with whom she had a video chat on the Internet.Relations with Russian "propagandists" were at their peak when she first publicly accused presidential candidate Biden of harassing her in 1993. Her duties included sorting mail and communicating with http://interns.At the time, she was working as an assistant on Senator Joe Biden's team.Mr. Biden once asked Tara Reid to serve drinks during a reception for important guests because he “liked my legs." Tara Reid realized that she was being bullied.A few days later, Senator Biden's office manager, Marianne Baker, advised her to dress more modestly. According to her, the problems started after she refused to do it.Then, she said, she met Mr. Biden in an empty Senate hallway. He pinned her against the wall, reached under her skirt, and penetrated her.Ms. Reid says she filed a complaint of harassment by the District Attorney with the Senate Department of Human Resources. Mr. Biden's senior aides, Ted Kaufman and Dennis Toner, later gave her a month to find a new job.After that, she was suspended from working with interns, and the desk was moved to a windowless office.Both men, as well as Ms Baker, told reporters they had no recollection of Ms Reid or her allegations against the senator. Biden's representatives began digging into her digital history and, finding her praising Putin, suspected her of working for Russia.Miss Reed, in turn, mocked them. Russian Russian Russian Russian spy: Together with her friend Miss Dale, she made a comic video with a parody interview in which she denied being a Russian spy, spoke with a bad Russian accent and offered a dinner of vodka and caviar.Her online embrace of Russia only seemed to intensify. The essay began with a quote from Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov: "It is very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if it is not there”" After the publication of the Mueller report, which confirmed Russian interference in 2016, Ms. Reed published an essay condemning xenophobia.She also found common ground with Biden's left-wing detractors, many of whom supported Bernie Sanders and believed that Russia had been unfairly maligned in the Mueller investigation.The Republicans got involved. They accused Democrats of hypocritically ignoring the #MeToo movement's battle cry of " trust women.""Speaking of Joe Biden," Tara Reid said, " I've lost everything again: my job, my home, and my reputation. The media called me all sorts of vile names and made me look like a monster for daring to talk about Joe Biden and what happened.” ”According to the publication, the story of Tara Reid with the accusation against Joe Biden was not the only one, so it did not receive enough wide coverage and ended without success. Correspondents interviewed almost a hundred friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbors, and also studied the court records, many of her records and publications.The editors sent not one, but several journalists to investigate, who investigated the life of Tara Rida in detail. The New York Times contributed significantly to this.It turned out not very pleasant biography of a 56-year-old woman, an ordinary American. And I saw America for what it really is.But at the same time, the life of Tara Reid was described against the background of American everyday life, presented without magazine gloss. On the one hand, it depended on certain characteristics of the character and behavior of Tara Reid, on the other hand, it depended on the goals set for investigative journalists by the editorial board of the newspaper that supported Biden as a presidential candidate.My classmate Dima tries to do about the same thing in his publications about the USSR. Just when we were in the same course, at the same faculty of the most prestigious Soviet university.And Dima publishes a photo of him in his own apartment in the early 80s of the last century. Otherwise, in retrospect, it was, at best, a mediocre life."Here he briefly mentions that in the USSR," we were spared the colossal costs of medical insurance, higher education, and exorbitant housing costs.However, he preliminarily clarifies that at that time his parents were already retired, "which, together with my small scholarship, increased our total monthly income to about 230 rubles a month.Below the photo is a description of the items in the room.- Внизу я сижу в большой комнате нашей двухкомнатной квартиры в Москве. Вы you can see the top of the folding sofa that my parents used as a B&D Graphic Design - Cataloghi - Manifesti - Advertising - Packaging covered an area of about 20 sq. m. it served as a living room and a shared bedroom for me and my parents. The photographer is standing with his back to the windowsill, so that almost the entire room is visible. We paid "social rent" to the factory where my father worked.To the right is a sideboard, a cabinet, and three shelves. We kept books there.But we were too poor to own anything worth putting on display. In other families, the glass-enclosed area was usually used to display fine dining sets, coffee cups, crystal vases, and photographs... On the wall was a map of France, published in French, given to me by a guest from the French delegation who visited my school a few years ago. It was a window the size of a map, through which I could enter another world.Being new, the printing ink smelled completely different than in the USSR, something advanced and luxurious.Downstairs, I'm lying on the bed with my textbook. The brown turtleneck I wear is made of artificial fiber, but it doesn't stretch or discolor when washed, so it's my favorite date item.The carpet on the wall cost about 300 rubles, which at the time of purchase in the 1970s was the monthly salary of the father and mother combined.I'm wearing corduroy pants. These pants were also my favorite for dating.But corduroy is very forgiving. It took more time and effort than I expected, and the outer seam on my left leg curved back slightly. When I saw an old roll of dark green corduroy living deep in my mother's closet, I decided to make the pants myself (Yes, I could do more than just propaganda). We couldn't afford it at the time. Blue jeans, which were then in fashion, would have cost me at least 70-80 rubles, the entire monthly salary of my mother.The socks I wear are also made of artificial fiber. For me, it was like throwing away the bike after every ride."..I still remember my amazement when I read in Swedish Swedish whodunit that their main character used to throw his socks in the trash after one use. These socks have been used for many years. They were sturdy, didn't choke on shoes, and remained reliably brown.Agree, Dima truthfully tells about the everyday details of Soviet reality. But there is an inferiority complex in the intonation, a reverence for the opportunities that the inhabitants of Western countries have.I can confirm that jeans were in fashion. To buy jeans, in my spare time from school, I worked as a stoker in a boiler room that heated one of the central districts of Moscow.Fashion items are always more expensive not only in the USSR, but even more so in the West.It was possible to agree with Dima about the cramped Soviet apartment. In those years, I did not want to be under the control of an adult who imposed an outdated model of behavior on young people.I did not take the opportunity to live in a Moscow apartment that belonged to my father's lonely sister (her husband died in the war). But at the time, I was living in a student dorm, sharing a room with four other students.Talking about his cramped apartment, Dima is silent about the opportunities that all Soviet people had. Another thing is that Dima's family, perhaps, did not want to move from the center of Moscow to another, not so prestigious place.The real estate market in the USSR existed, although not in the same form as in the West. For example, a small apartment can be exchanged for a large one with a certain surcharge.In fact , the problems of the average Soviet Muscovite described by Dima on Quora seem insignificant to me compared to the problems of his social friend, the average American, as it looks in the New York Times article about Tara Reid. And most often it was not because of the search for a new job, not because of her grumpy nature, but because of the current living conditions in the United States.I calculated that the "Russian spy" was forced to live in more than ten cities.Dima timidly writes about a cabinet that occupies half of the room, and in which instead of expensive dishes there are books. Most often, she moved to another apartment because of overdue rent.She always rented an apartment from the owners. She had no reason to buy tables, chairs, sofas, carpets, dishes. Tara Reid had no such problems at all, because she, like millions of Americans, did not have her own apartment at all. Dima writes about the carpet that he inherited from his grandmother.I found that in the cities and towns where Tara Reid lived, most of the population lives in rented apartments. Tara Reid now lives in Grass Valley, California.About the same ratio in Monterey, Pacific Grove, Aptos. For example, Wikipedia reports that in the California city of Santa Cruz, with a population of about 60 thousand people, 43.3% were occupied by owners, and 56.7% were occupied by tenants.Once she even had to live in a yurt. This was in May 2018. And in the end Miss Rye confessed:”we had to pay her to leave."" In response, she threatened to sue. When the owners of the yurt, Ms Rai and her husband, decided to sell their house, they told Tara Reid that she would have to move. Then "Russian spy" working for the care of horses, and as the Board had the opportunity to live in a traditional house of the aborigines.In Seattle, Tara Reid rented two rooms from homeowner Austin Chang. "I made her new carpets,even repainted her bedrooms”"” I knew it was unacceptable, but I just went to meet her because she seemed so nice, and I thought I could help a single woman with a child, " Mr. Chang said . He allowed her to live here without full rent or collateral.Mr. Chang admitted to reporters that he had to persuade her to pay rent even at a reduced rate . He remembered that after she left, the carpets were stained with the excrement of her dogs and cats."She was the only one who made me cry," Mr. Chang said. In the end, feeling terrible but fed up, he kicked her out.Journalists found documents about the financial bankruptcy of Tara Reid in 2012. She owed $ 400,000,000, mostly on student loans.She owed the homeowner $ 12,750, but paid only $ 581 a month from government subsidies.In 2001, Tara Reid was a single mother studying at the University of Seattle Law School. She was so poor that she sometimes brought her daughter to class because she had no one to leave the child with.Her classmate told reporters that she was looking for a tutor.Well, was there such an attitude to single mothers in the USSR on the part of the state and society?! If such a woman is employed, the company is obliged to provide her with a roof over her head at preferential rates.All kinds of benefits while studying, as well as for working single mothers. Kindergartens for children up to three years old, kindergartens, schools, a whole system of children's health care, funded from the state budget. This is nothing compared to the living conditions in Western countries and, in particular, in the United States.But critics of the Soviet way of life focus on the inability of the Soviet state to provide the Soviet people with various types of food and industrial goods. Three or four varieties of sausage are especially often mentioned, while ten or twenty names of sausage products could be found on the shelves of Western stores. For the sake of such abundance in the USSR began perestroika.In modern Russia, store counters do not differ from Western ones . But few people think that a dozen varieties of sausage are made from less meat. Modern Russia has not reached the level of Soviet times. But in advertising sausage products, manufacturers try to attract customers by saying that this or that type of sausage is made according to Soviet recipes and has the taste of Soviet times, high Soviet quality.The Soviet deficit existed not because there was not enough production, but because every day was "black Friday". That is, products were sold at an affordable price for each person.Dima remembers about fashionable jeans. But it wasn't just jeans, because the Soviet industry produced enough jeans. We are talking about the name of the foreign company that produced these jeans. "Levis" or "Wrangler" were highly appreciated by fashionistas. A garment factory "the Muscovite" has not been recognized by the snobs. Dima made himself corduroy jeans, probably with the label of some fashion company. It was kind of crazy.I myself lived in a rural area in the south of Russia until I was eighteen, so I did not experience a lack of food. My family grew vegetables and fruits on one acre of private land. I've been taking care of chickens, ducks, pigs, and rabbits since I was a kid. And then with pleasure I used the grown products prepared by my parents. During my studies at Moscow University, my parents regularly sent me food parcels. A friend with whom I shared a Dorm room, and received parcels from their parents. Most often, he was sent red caviar in three-liter cans. Sometimes we drank and ate vodka with red caviar, scooping it up with large tablespoons.But that doesn't mean we lived like nobles. Sometimes we had to eat water and bread, because we did not learn how to spend money and food rationally, and we abused alcohol and other excesses.Summing up my reflections on life in the USSR and in the United States at the end of the twentieth century, I am surprised at how firmly ingrained in the minds of Western people the propaganda cliches of the Cold War. It surprises me that post-communist Russia is still the # 1 enemy for the United States and its NATO allies. Only one thing pleases me, that the case of the "Russian spy" in the United States did not receive further development, and my classmate at the University of Dima was not sanctioned by the United States.

Here is what I did three years ago at age 69. Exactly as written in my diary as it unfolded:I needed an adventure so I went online and found a retired Canadian guy my age with a 46 foot boat he needed help sailing back from trinidad to Mexico. Five months with no real schedule. We started Oct 1 2015. Heres whats happened to dateAfter 17 hours bobbing in high seas and fierce winds at night 150 miles off Caracas, with no steering - 26 hours of making no way against high seas and winds - which during my watch at night had a wave break in the cockpit and knock me down - and then being stuck for 4 days on a reef way outside Venezuela - after which two French couples showed up and helped stabilize the boat which was being eaten day and night by the coral and rocks - I got to Bonaire on their boat and arranged a rescue. After 7 total days we steamed back to the captain to snatch and rescue - we were now pirates. We were on a foreign vessel (Dutch) in Venezuelan sovereign waters attempting a rescue illegally. At sun up and upon arriving we were blocked by a large Venezuelan Coast Guard ship. The Capt told us that if the boat could sail on its own after we towed it off the rocks - it could go. If not we could only rescue the other Captain (at this point I refer to him this way out of tradition and not respect) - but the boat would have to stay.The boat that brought us there was a pilot tug. Low bodied, very powerful, small wheelhouse. You couldnt stand up it was so rough and wet. There was barely any room in the wheelhouse, you could see nothing at night with waves crashing on the window - and they had no compass (fortunately we had a small hand held GPS). The crew absolutely looked like they were cast from Pirates of The Carribean. One had a dread to his waist, one looked like an ancient nervous bird, the captain had a small dread behind one ear, gold earring and outlined gold front tooth. All able bodied seamen who apparently never sleep. All of them and some of us (3) smoked in the tiny overheated wheelhouse - which if you were at all prone to seasickness was a death knell (nobody was though).After 8 punishing hours we arrivedThe Capt of the Coast Guard Cutter and I immediately hit it off. After 4 years of summer school and 9 years in Panama City my Spanish is good enough to make jokes (and negotiate hostage boats) - having a Son in the US Navy and a Daughter in Law from Venezuela didnt hurt either. I made some discreet offering of tobacco and fishing tackle and a tiny amount of cash (to the sailors stationed aboard us) and what started as a potential loss of the boat, de escalated - provided she was sea worthy after being towed off the reef. The moment came and there was a HUGE pop. The rudder had snapped clear off (not a small item as the column was as thick as my torso!!)Now shes leaking badly. After lots of diving and bailing and use of underwater epoxy and rag stuffing - the Capt of the cutter inspects and says we need to go to the nearby sub-station for inspection of both vessels (the towboat and the sinking one) - I schmooze him - we exchange my jungle style camo hat for his cap with his ship and the Venezuelan flag emblazoned on it, a few more jokes and hooks and bug spray later he says - ah what the hell - get going.We leave and she starts taking more water under tow. Bailing like crazy - bilge pump never stopping - everything below is now sloshing around - plus being towed in moderate swells we are cycling back and forth and healing over each time. Basically we are sinking under tow.They come by alongside and wave as in - everything cool? We all smile and give thumbs up - just go away please!The bilge pump blows. Buckets aint cutting it even a little. My young French commando like friend says lets use the fresh water cooling intake for the engine as a bilge. I locate that and there is a cutoff valve. He cuts the hose, shoves it under and we slosh our way back for 18 hours just ahead - barely - of the water, all the way back to Bonaire.I thank the "Capt" for the great memories (strange thing is I meant it) - collect my gear and wish him good luck (btw he will need it because hes in for a shock when the insurance company says they dont cover ships in Venezuelan waters due in part to the rampant piracy).Now I have finally relaxed a few days after 20 - the preceding of which was only some part of.The young French couple invited me to stay and sail on with them from here to Panama (probably another 800 miles during which we clear Venezuela and Colombia).Great show - high ticket price - but oh so unforgettable performances!!! LoLPS - That night off Caracas with no steering I spent literally hours staring at a sky so clear and bright that you could see the milky way - reflected in the sea! Looking at that and the huge swells in high winds I had time to really think - really consider my mortality. The conversation I had was answered by a bright shooting star that came the moment I thought of my son. Peace and grace apparently can come from the smallest reminders in the biggest situations.I refer to myself as the little mouse who lives in a hole. My "room" is a little bigger than a coffin. I sweat so much at night that i need to air dry the pillow and sheet each day. My "shower" is a plunge into the sea each morning. If i dont towel off I am like a salted Bacalao all day. Some days i find enough salt behind my ears to season a roast.Oh most people would hate it. This isnt luxury by any means. 99.9% of people my age (im ancient as you well know) couldnt do this for a day. Just climbing off and on the boat into the dingy requires circus skill. Im totally in my element. Covered in blisters from sun, scrapes - my shins hurt constantly from banging into things. We look for Iguana to catch and eat. We just got a net to throw to catch fish. As the sun went down yesterday we were taking turns practicing throwing it. We wash dishes (mostly me) with and cook with sea waterMeals can be rudimentary pasta with vegetables and a hamburger - to a whole chicken roasted over a bbq using coconut husks to smoke it. Celine even baked fresh bread on the bbq - including chocolate bread!Every meal we finish with cheese (really cheap here in the Dutch Antilles) and bread and then a fruit. Eating good cheese is foreign to me. Panama has a small dairy industry and - well - a friend of mine once glibly put it this way - you know you're in Panama when you pay more for a wedge of cheese than an ounce of cocaine. The name of the boat is Exil. Its actually home for them on the Seine. When I first came aboard they had three baby chics to raise for eggs - but they have one by one died. Sad but they did get a burial at sea.Its like Paris meets survivor. One day a perfect green mango floated by - we grabbed it and ate green mango salad for two days. One day it was rice with cooked plaintain and preserved shark from Tobago they caught. Coconut meat from a coconut saved from Senegal gets drizzled with melted chocolate from Holland and my mouth explodes. Last night bananas flambé for desert! We go through lots of rum. No matter what it is - somehow under primitive conditions on this boat food is like the fourth of July to my tongue.If money could buy the perfect adventure there wouldnt be enough to find this one.As this is written it will be a month now. I have been in Curacao (Caracas Bai) for two weeks. We will sail off to Colombia - sailing two days and nights + to skirt Venezuela.Whats next I dont know - but there is a lot of ocean between here and there and i have my fishing rods and they have a boat line - so we are bound to snag a Barracuda or Dorado (Mahi Mahi to my more sophisticated friends) - or a Tuna or Shark. Whatever it is I have wasabe along and two French companions who make every meal insane.Lets see what happens next. Colombia isnt the organized Dutch territories by a long shot.Today is day 40 since I originally started off with Capn Crunch.The sail from Curacao to Colombia took two days and nights. We rotate 3 hour shifts. I usually stay longer and let Franc and Celine get extra rest. I especially like the 3am to 6am. At that time its cool to cold out. I have a warm waterproof lightweight jacket. Usually i roll up my heavy weight shorts and use them to pad the pully at one side of the cockpit. After years of being on the road and more than 40 countries I have learned to bring my feather pillow from home with me. Its like an old friend and assures me that even when my "room" ( just wider than my shoulders) is heaving and rolling - my head is comfy. It has a really funky smell and most days I set it in the sun to dry out because by most mornings its soggy from sweat and humidity. Dampness pervades everything on a boat in open sea. By laying flat in the cockpit I can stare at the stars - also pitching and moving with the roll of the boat. At night the sea is very different. We sailed our last 3 days with 6 foot swells pushing us and the very strong wind mostly at our back. In the day its easy to see the swells. Usually there are at least two to three in a set that are way bigger. The boat tends to pause at the top of those then surf down as the next looks like it will break over us from behind - then she does a big roll that can knock you into things really hard if you are below. Timing is everything below in a pitching 30 foot boat. Doors swing open fast and too hard, she leans the other way and its slamming hard enough to chop off a finger, time it wrong and youre slammed into the edge of the door. Its school yard monkey bars with the ground pitching and swaying. Every move needs to be thpught out in advance. Im a human pachinko ball.At night I see glistening and foam and hear the waves instead of see them. The seem to crest next to you, hissing, spitting and foaming. Im on a 30 foot cork in an open sea. I keep thinking Im seeing shooting stars but sometimes its just the constant rolling sky. Other times its shooting stars. The entire disk of the Earths surface is around me. Violent lightning explodes in the distance but is a tiny fraction of the horizon. So far away that there is no thunder. Just black. Your mind can play tricks on where the waves are coming from and little of the movement can be anticipated. I dont know why they call them the Trade Winds when the Holy Shit Whats Going On Winds was still available. By taking the 3 -6 watch I get to see the sky eventually lighten and the sun come up on the horizon. I have no words to describe this except to say its humbling and never the same twice. In a way it feels like when mom used to say ok Ill leave the light on outside your room and the door open a crack but I cant expain why. Maybe like when the roller coaster finally slows down suddenly and you know you made it and now want to ride again?Landfall Colombia! The place we go barely exists on the charts. Bahia Portete. Its the first anchorage in Colombia after Venezuela. A remote outpost that from the outside looks like flat arid land with mountains in the distance. We are some 45 miles from Venezuela. Inside the entry is some kind of industrial factory or processing plant. There are large wind turbines that provide the power. Huge freighters enter. A guard boat paces back and forth across the entry and they literally scoped us out then waved hi. I expect it has something to do with this area being a light conflict zone - we have seen no other sailboats since leaving Curacao. None. This is considered unsafe these days. Inside past the guard boat is another world. Local fishermen in dugout canoes (Cayucos) with homemade sails are here and there. There is a dilapidated dock where medium sized super old freighters (two from Panama) unload merchandise for eventual sale in the interior cities. These are floating rust. The goods are unloaded by hand and put on ancient trucks. Hundreds of men - young and old alike - carry two (heavy) cardboard boxes each either on their padded shoulder or head using a ring made from rolled cardboard and clear tape. They line up and look like leaf cutter ants all following a trail. A portly "jefe" yells at them continuously calling them niñas (little girls). There is no dawdling. Every one of them is either black or a Guna Indian. The work is back breaking. The temps here have to be approaching 100. They all smile hello. Whats onboard headed back toward Panama is anyones guess.After staying below almost all day to avoid the searing sun, we got in the dingy to try and find Iguana or Caiman on a nearby island. Our intention is to eat them. Since leaving Isla Sur Barlovento Venezuela and the reef from hell we have dragged two lines in the water and have so far only gotten one Barracuda - promptly eaten. I hooked something heavy as we sailed into this new anchorage but lost ot I am sure because of a rookie mistake - didnt set the hook!! DRATSAs we approached a cut in the mangrove I spotted two eyes just above the water. A big caiman! Before Franc could assemble his rifle it went under. We could see the silt it kicked up in the shallows as it escaped and we tried to follow it before it got too deep. We were there to walk the place looking for caimen and iguana till nightfall - after dark we wore bright LED forehead mounted lights to look for reflected eyes. Of course Franc had Little Badger - which were we to be caught with would land us in a Colombian prison - especially this being a currently active hot spot with Venezuela.More troubling though was that after dark - on land - we would be in the Caimans territory where they have the advantage - not us. I kept imagining the news spreading among my few friends - did you hear about Fiveson? No what!? He was dragged into a tidal swamp in a death roll by a 15 foot Caiman and eaten!Yes - but a good death.The island was like something out of a primitive alien lost world sci fi flick. I have been in probably 45 countries, war zones (Beirut twice - Honduras with the Contras once), covert behind The Iron Curtain stuff, up the Lualaba River an offshoot of The Congo in Zaire known by the locals as The River Of Death - Leper Colonies, Uganda immediately after after Idi Amin - arrested in what is now Serbia for being a spy - etc etc yadda yadda (the list actually goes on) - but of all that.... this place gave me the willies.So we enter through the narrow cut in the mangrove (where I spotted the eyes) - to bone dry desert. Everything - every single plant had thorns or was some form of cactus. This is a flesh eating hellhole! From small barrel cactus, giant cactus, just spikes everywhere. Underfoot, above - everywhere! Twisted gnarled dry looking leafless trees with thorns and cactus needles. We picked our way along. Underfoot was shells. Lots of shells mostly the kind you thrill to find but none intact. But wait - around every turn was a tidal pool that looked like a lake. The clouds were reflected, terns, osprey, tiny birds, big birds, those skinny birds with the long yellow beaks... This place is actually strangely beautiful! As we walked following the contours of the many many salt water ponds i kept thinking - wow when the tide comes in nothing will be familiar and in the dark not only wont we be able to step over the 16 million cactus spikes laying or growing on the ground - any one of which could slice into a rubber soled shoe in a heartbeat - but after darkness falls - there will be abslutely NO way to know where we are. Nevermind the death roll - not losing an eye would be a major win here! This is Treasure Hunt for predators on spikey death island!I guess my caution was logical because my two French friends and I find ourselves at the dingy as darkness truly falls. So we get in it and for an hour cruise the mangroves with our lights looking for red reflected eyes to shoot at and eat (i was also thinking about how Youtube could show me how to make a headband for a hat!). Never saw a thing though. No shots fired. Rum is our reward this day.The next day I was cutting the spines off cactus to boil and eat (something I will never try again as the spines seem to be microscopic and magnetized to human skin!) - when I looked up there was a big 1200 hp pontoon boat next to us full of very armed Colombian Coast guard (with eqt no doubt supplied by the US as it was all brand new. Tgey even had thermal imaging). We wondered why there was a helo circling all morning - now we knew. They boarded us and said they needed our papers and to do a full inspection. Here we go again. 8 guys. Once again however by being friendly open and humorous (and speaking Spanish and showing them my tattoo from Medellin) the "inspection" ended up being our needing to sign some forms and nothing more. They needed a thumb print - oops no ink. Oh well skip that. They even offered to fill some water jugs for us from their tank (fresh water being the most valuable commodity we carry) a gesture so gracious I was astonished. It seemed their real purpose was to warn us that we were in a very unsafe area (something I tried to explain to my young French hosts but they still enjoy the arrogance of indestructibility). The Lt in charge gave me his cell number and asked me to notify him we made it outta there ok (I did).The helo followed us as we left.Another almost 72 hours of open water day and night - and now we are in Santa Marta Colombia.Now we are in a Marina. This morning I had my first shower that wasnt sea water in a month!I dont know how long we will be here but based on the beaurocracy to get cleared in - could be a while! But the rum is good here and everything is very cheap (full charcoal grilled chicken dinner with potato (real ones) plantain and salad - $4By walking around with no entry stamp we are technically breaking the law - but this is Central America and for me very familiar and negotiable.Today is day 54 since I originally started off with Capn Crunch.So far - thats all she wrote.As I write this its 4am. We have left Santa Marta after about two weeks there. The sea is the calmest its been in almost two months. Almost like a lake. Earlier today the wind died but now its brisk and cool - a nice change from the days which are scorching. Santa Marta is a nice little city. Depending on who you ask its either the oldest city in Colombia or perhaps the New World. 1510? Like all Latin American cities theres a huge cathedral surrounded by a "historic district". There are lively little restaurants and gift shops but the essence of the city is many many shops and clusters of areas. Some are just motorcycle repair places, meat vendors, fruits and vegetables (each in their own district), fish carts pulled by horses. Motorbikes are popular in Colombia. Outside the city are mountains and in them coffee growing regions (and the famous Santa Marta whacky tobaccy). The main shopping street is alive with pedestrians and shops but lining the sidewalks are every kind of stall you can imagine. Meat and small whole white potatoes on a stick cooked over charcoal. Tropical fruits to take home or eat as your walking. Tamales stuffed with rice and either beef or pork, sausages, shoes, dresses, watch and cell phone repair - done right there in front of you (I had my totally cracked iphone 4 repaired front and back and even changed it from black to white for $40 in twenty minutes). Fresh icy cold limonada (using the key lime variety) and tangerine drinks - from real tangerines! - everything always under a dollar.Customs clearance takes over a week. Then we are required to get a navigation permit to cruise - as well as a "zarpe" which states our last port of call so we are clear to leave both the marina and when we chose to leave, the country. Two weeks of waiting. We decide its time to see a cove with a beach - permit be damned. We sail a short hop to Taganga. A gorgeous little cove that caters to day trippers - locals and a very few tourists. Beach chairs, rides on long balloon like inflatables behind a loco Colombian kid with a fast panga - and other diversions, pedal boats, food, kayaks, cold beer.... A riot of color and activities. We anchor in close to the action to where its spinning around us and spend the night. Once the sun goes down theres no one there. Nobody. Our second night we are settling in after eating and the wind is a gale. Before long we notice we are not where we anchored anymore - we are slipping anchor. Wisely we motor back to the marina well after dark. The next night at appx 2:30 am in the same place a couple from New Zealand are boarded by 6 men - two have guns. They pistol whip the man, tie them up and steal everything - jewelry, computers, phones, dingy motor - anything they can. They have no hurry. Later that morning the couple sails into the marina. Before we left our slippped anchor mooring at Taganga beach we were being perused by two small fishing boats. I saw them lingering as the sun went down. Odd maneuvering at a strange hour for small fishing pangas. Franck and I both kept an eye on them but once darkness falls they are hidden. Maybe fate intervened.So we leave Santa Marta and decide to head to SanBlas Panama. Its a three day and night trip. We are expecting to enter those waters sometime tomorrow. The area is a "comarca" - a sovereign area given to the Guna Indians after an uprising many years ago. There are 365 islands. Some the size of a football field - some quite large. All of them are very very rustic and unspoiled. Non Guna cannot fish or own property there. Think coconut palms, thatched shacks, sugar white sand and aquamarine waters. Should be nice and quiet and safe. Where we will find water or provisions is anyones guess. Theres little to nothing there. The good news is the place is famous for lobster and crab - which the Indians eschew as they prefer meat or chicken. I sense we will be doing some bartering.Oh and as we have been traveling my dry spell has ended. The first day out I caught a small yellowfin tuna which i filleted and we ate dipped in Wasabe (I cleverly packed) and soy - wow! Talk about fresh - the fish was still twitching after i filleted it. The next day a gorgeous Dorado (Mahi Mahi) had to be 25 pounds easy. Hes salted and spiced and drying in the rear in the sun. I tried a piece tonight (a day later not dried yet clearly) - great! After the Dorado I caught a Jack. Also excellent and being sun dried.On the way to SanBlas we jump off the back of the boat while shes still moving (very slowly) holding onto a line. No bathing suits (actually dear reader I might as well be with nudists. None of us wear clothes ever. A tale for another day). The second day we swam it occurred to me we were in blue water - no land in sight, and I had just once again allowed mself to be dragged behind a mving hoat in open sea - im curious... so I looked at the GPS of where we were. Off the coast of Cartagena - in just short of 4000 foot deep water. So I dont feel like a chicken for trying not to splash like I was a struggling Jewfish and bait for something bigger.As I write this we are at the entrance to SanBlas. The first thing you see is that there are a lot of surf breaking on reefs (im reefaphobic at this point?) not lost on anyone is the first sight is a scuttled a sailboat sitting on a reef. No matter in we go. Its why we are here.Maybe 4 islands in we drop anchor by our own very small tripical island - it even has a reef - which we snorkel while Franck hunts. Because he has a GoPro im called into play and try out some edit in the camera chops. First time im shooting in a weightless 3D realm. The reef is amazing. Just imagine the prettiest salt water fish tank ever - now amp it up by a factor of a trillion and make it so big you feel like a guppy (actually after this long alone I would like to be a kissing Gourami) full of fish that are well - psychedelic. I saw one thats an intense metallic blue punctuated by actual gold flecks. Other than big brain corals and sponges I have no idea what im even seeing but im on another planet. Water world. Totally another world. Francks an animal. He had about 5 custom spearguns made in Colombia to add to his collection. He is a true fish hunter. He even sets ambushes and waits for them. I make some great shots (video) he makes some great shots (lunch and dinner). Drowning is never far from my mind but shooting distracts me i found. Im def not a SEAL though. I tend to stay close enough to the reef that i can always stand if i absolutely need to because my mask leaks (facial hair no seal). The reef itself has interesting underwater lanes and drop offs - swimming in and through them is an extreme exploartion but sometimes they lead to dead end shallows with coral inches below my chest. Time to turn around hopefully and find another way through back to deeper water. Its an underwater maze with coral that wants my skin (believe me I have some weird itchy places on my leg that were bleeding) Im wearing leather gloves and long sleeves but it still rips the crap out of skin and my legs are naked. Theres a lot to think about as the waves make weird surges and shoves you around. Even the fish seem at times to just sit in place and move back and forth back and forth from the waves breaking on the reef.We eat fresh fish both lunch and dinner. In fact for the last (what has it been? Time has ceased to exist completely) - week? - we have been living off the small reef next to our private island. Snapper, small lobsters, the biggest trigger fish (superb eating!) I will probably ever see - the list goes on. Boiled, pan fried, but mostly - like the two good sized spider crabs last night - over charcoal. Not the kind that lights itself and imbues everything with the taste of the New Jersey refineries, the real deal.The last two days the wind has been blowing and the rain on and off. Last night while we slept there was a huge thud and sound like we had been hit by another boat or something - all hands on deck! - we swung on the anchor which slipped briefly until it found better purchase. Back to sleep.Earlier today some local Guna fishermen came by. Open smiling faces. Guileless. Nice. Always interested in where we are from - always amazed to hear Franck and Celine live on this boat in Paris and crossed the Atlantic to eventually come here. They had lobsters for sale. 7 for $20. I ended up negotiating the 4 nicest (i.e. biggest) for $10. They have been flash pressure cooked and will be served with pasta sometime during my writing these words. The pasta will be topped with Gouda cheese from Holland (we picked up a whole wheel in Curacao like a month ago - for what a mere wedge would have cost in Panama). They're French they know how to keep cheese alive!Tomorrow is Sunday. We will time our journey to try to arrive at Portobello for Monday. Portobello is a ramshackle town with an amazing history. During the time the Spanish were looting South America in the name of God and gold it was where the treasure laden ships stopped to have the booty inventoried before continuing to Cuba then Spain. The small bay narrows at the opening. Fort Lorenzo and other battlements still exist, their cannons pointing at the narrows. The original "counting house" also is still there. In the 1650's it was one of the richest places and most fortified places in the New World. Needless to say it was on every pirate or privateers radar back then. Morgan is one of the luminaries - in fact they allege his final resting place was found nearby in the sea in the last couple of years. Its there we will anchor next. From Portobello I will find my way back to my car and condo via small local shuttles (its an hour and a half direct drive from sea to sea but with traffic return and bus change overs it will take most the day). Then return the next day and retrieve my belongings and my two friends while on our way to customs and immigration. Even though I have a permanent resident Cedula for Panama I still need to officially disembark from the boat where im listed as crew and my "occupation" - sailor - an affectation had I declared that myself but that was decided for me by immigration all the way back starting in Trinidad and has just been copied by each succeeding official.Franck and Celine will come to my apartment and have an open invitation to stay as long as they want. Its time to sail the concrete seas!My journey is almost at end. They will soon cross from The Carribean to the Pacific by transiting the canal. I have been invited to join them on the transit before they head south toward eventually The Galapagos.My trip has been two months and a week and the wonders, adventures, emotions, realizations and surprises have been like a color wheel, always changing always brilliant, always vibrant, unpredictable and indelible. I may get off this 30 feet of floating wonder - this tiny speck of a cork in the vastness of sea but I have no doubt - none whatsoever - that I have met many interesting people and characters and denizens of the "cruising" community from all over the globe - as well as two of the most generous, interesting and oh so capable people of my lifetime. I also know - like a shadow I cannot escape - that the roll of the open deep sea will remain within me now until my remaining allotted measure of heartbeats is expended.What other adventures, whether serendipity or calculated are between here and there....We shall see....(But as they say in show biz - this is a tough act to follow!)And yes, that is all she wrote.RobAs human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves. ― Mahatma Gandhi