Ed Templeton

So back to the Green Goddess, as I prepared her for her maiden voyage she drew admiring glances and prompted conversations with all passers–by, she’s a real show stopper. I still haven’t been able to put her through her paces because I haven’t really found much power in the ocean yet. Not for lack of trying though. My surf–buddy so far has been Paula, a very cool girl from Asturias — where I'm looking to to buy a village — via Madrid who I met whilst priming GG. We’ve wandered up and down the coast, scrambled over rocks, paddled out to rocky prominantaries day after day with little luck. There’s either been not enough swell, too much water, too little water or we’ve just been to the wrong places — our joke has become that we’re actually not surfers, we just like taking our boards out for a 'lovely walk' — and end back at the weak beach-break out front.

Another significant character in the Santa Catalina story is the wonderfully warm, charismatic and incredibly funny Mikael from Israel. He’s so unlike the typical dour Israeli traveler to be almost unrecognizable. Paula, Mikael and I are going for a family day out to Soná tomorrow on the bus and we’ve resolved to sing all the way there, entertaining the passengers and thereby saving our $2.50 fare. We’ve been laughing lots together. They are good people.

Another interesting character is Lee from Hull who I met on the plane into Panama. His typical northern machismo persona masks a sensitive, deep thinking man. Some of the conversations we’ve had he’s said he could never have with his best friends at home. He’s been a Saturday night pub fighter in his youth and has razor blade scars all over his body to prove it. He’s been hilariously funny in a very loud, northern way, but what’s been equally amusing is the American, Dutch, Canadian and Spanish speakers trying to understand a word he’s saying. At the beach bonfire last night he got soppy-drunk and called me an oracle and that our conversations had stimulated thoughts which had changed his outlook on life. He said I had a 'pure soul' which is one of the nicest things anyone has said to me, but means even more coming from a stranger, a stranger from Hull. There's nothing stranger than Hull.

I’m thinking a lot about another pure soul I know and that makes me happy…