AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CAT ON A JOURNEY FROM CAPE ...

was because they called collect, which put the onus on her and she seems to be able tocope with life. Then they laid out about twenty-five bucks to call Mommy-Lampie inSouth Africa. They got through to Ouma who told them that Walda was out and that she,Ouma, couldn't hear a word they were saying. She then hung up. They wandered aroundthe town for a while, enjoying the hustle and bustle and helping Fatso put down severalof those ice-cold beers for which the Brazilians are so justly famous. They then madetheir way to the Supermercado to load up with goodies for the rest of the trip. By the timethey got back to the boat Rick had filled the water tanks and had lost one of the oars ofthe dinghy. He had made another that was about as efficient as a square wheel, but whichserved the purpose more or less.One of the things about the Fortaleza anchorage is that the holding grounddoesn't. Twice that afternoon we dragged and had to reset the hook. Fatso sat on theterrace of the yacht club, drinking beer with an Englishman from one of the other boats atthe anchorage, and watched TINA nearly sink another vessel down-wind of us. Rick,Tony, and Jan were on board at the time, with the dinghy tied to the rail, and they reactedin a manner in keeping with their individual characters. Tony jumped into the dink androwed ashore for help, while Rick and Jan started up the engine and re-set the hook. Bythe time Tony got to the beach, the job was done, so, unwilling to have wasted a trip andalways anxious to be of assistance, he remained to help Fatso drink beer.Old Skin-head took over the job of guarding the boat that afternoon, giving Janand Rick a chance to wander around the town for a few hours. His method ofsafeguarding the vessel was unique. For the first hour or so he sat below with theEnglishman, killing a bottle of rot-gut. During the process he made a gift of the sparesextant to his guest whose own sextant had been stolen and who was about to set out forAntigua with only an RDFL to guide him. Obviously, Fatso and the Englishman weretwo of a kind. Then they left to have dinner on the Englishman's boat, as blatant adereliction of duty as one could imagine. What if some thieves had come aboard andstolen me? What did he expect me to do if the anchor dragged? What would havehappened if Philip had not already given me my dinner' Finally Fatso returned and fellasleep in the cockpit, reasoning that no thief would approach us if they saw him sittingthere. I had to agree with him on this point. Since he had not trimmed his beard or cut hishair for several months and was wearing clothes that would have been rejected by anyself-respecting pirate, he looked, in Tony's words, "like something that had escaped froma zoo."The others came back to the ship at various times during the night. Tony collecteda few bottles of his whiskey which he sold for an immense profit, but for which he waspaid cruzeiros that he would have no time to spend and would fetch little on the moneymarket of the next country we stopped at. Philip and Karin were back and forth gettingmoney to spend on ice-cream for which they had developed a craving while at sea, andRick and Jan walked the beach front and enjoyed themselves quietly.The deadline the Policia had given Fatso for leaving, "tonight," arrived at sixthirtythe following morning lust as the anchor was dragging for the fourth time. Theskipper set eight o'clock as our FTD, but since we had the engine going to re-set thehook, and since the anchor was up already, he figured we might as well push off. Whatgreat logic. I would not have been surprised if he had anchored again and waited for eighto'clock just to show the Policia a thing or two.45