Final preparations before flying to Egypt

One of the things that people who travel up and down Africa have learned is that the US dollar is the true currency of Africa.

If one day the Americans give up the dollar in favour of an Amero, or the World Bank successfully introduces the Yuan or Yen as an International Trading currency, in Africa it will remain the dollar.

The Africans have had lots of experience with their own currencies devaluing, sometimes to joke levels, that they now trust and accept the US dollar.

You can bribe your way through borders, buy guns and pay off falsified criminal accusations with dollars.

Even Pirates like dollars.

So dollars we need and so dollars is what I went looking for in Paris.

I am only mentioning all of this because I found a wide range of exchange rates in Paris and the best one was at “Yes Exchange” in Rue Rouget de l’Isle which is adjacent to the Tuileries Gardens near the Louvre.

I also found a wide range of prices for things like T-shirts, which ranged from five euros on street markets to more than my monthly household budget…. For a T-shirt!

On my way to do this, Marlene took the advantage of the situation to try and improve my appreciation of the Arts, so she routed us to the Musée Rodin. What a worthwhile visit is was in spite of the clouds and rain, all of which made the “Gates of Hell” more dramatic than a Spring day would.

We had to photograph the “Thinker”, which I felt was misnamed and could be better known as the “Regular Ruminator”, or perhaps the “Calculating Colon Cleanser”.

His pose is correct for that.

 

I have to apologise for the ‘starboard list’ of this picture, but it seems that Rodin has constructed most of his works with a ‘leaning’, perhaps to give them a sense of urgency. Perhaps this fellow’s urgency was evident before he sat down?

On a more serious note our preparations have included buying night vision optics, which give us the possibility to “see” in low light conditions and also to illuminate objects with infrared light, which makes them easy to see on the darkest night.

This is only a part of our anti-piracy procedures. We have set up communications with the International Piracy Centres who monitor and co-ordinate movements of war ships who react to threats and incidents in High Risk areas.

The reality is that in a small boat we are vulnerable to all sorts of problems.

Not only do we have to contend with the weather, coral reefs and collisions with whales.  Yes I have had that experience. Perhaps I will write about it later.

But also we have to treat all ships as a danger, not only because they can collide with us, but also because the mercenaries they have on board could easily fire upon us in the mistaken idea that we are pirates. These mercenaries have to justify their employment, so I suspect that they are trigger-happy.

The war ships in the area are also sensitive to small boats.

After the suicidal bombing of USS Cole in Aden in 2000 I am sure that the gunners on board would rather risk a court marshal than risk their shipmates’ lives to another attack. And how would they know that our small yacht had not been hi-jacked by terrorists and was being used to mount another attack?

No…. I expect they would fire first and ask questions afterwards.

I would in their position.

So we have to keep clear of warships as well.

In addition to all the above, the procedures for transiting the most dangerous area is to assemble the ships at point ‘A’ or point ‘B’ depending on the direction of transit and then release them with the slowest first and the fastest chasing after them. The result of this is likely to be a flotilla of ships at different speeds all converging on a point in the ocean with us in the middle!

Yes, we are going to have to be vigilant.

 

Is there anyone out there who would like to be an extra watch keeper?