Well, well, Look what the cat just dragged in was my first remark upon seeing the man I thought to be dead, lost in the mountains and crevices of Tahiti. This man, Chris, who was my guest on Symbiosis for a few weeks and regaled me with unwanted quotations from his bible has left my boat to crew on another boat while I sailed to Moorea for a week. Upon my return I heard he did not returned from over-night trip and was overdue for several days. My friend Erik and I thought to organize a search party in Chris behalf, but have been told, the local police force was looking for him and so we waited to hear what they would turn up. Fourteen days went by and we thought Chris to have crossed the Jordan, kicked the bucket, and I announced his most-likely demise over the VHF radio as I have had conducted the Cruisers Net Control. One morning. on the day of my departure from Tahiti, I heard a hollering of my name from the shore and since they were only two people who would call me by name, I wondered who possibly it could be. One was Erik, but he was on his way to New Zealand and the other Chris, who was presumably on his way to his heaven. But there he stood, on the dinghy dock, skinny like a starving scare-crow and scratched up as if a cat had him worked over, substituted for a mouse, The grin he wore threatened his ears to disappear in his mouth, without any decency to at least look half-dead after two weeks being lost. We greeted each other with a hug and words of surprise from my side over his return from the dead and without the need to go to Jerusalem. He then proclaimed his rescue as god's doing but it seemed to not arouse his suspicion it may have been the same faculty that put him in the situation in the first place. I guess that had to be the competition putting him there. He has got an interview out of his ordeal and I'm sure, the religious fervent got a boost and god is rubbing his hands; more souls for his heaven. Nevertheless, I still felt relief of him being among the living and not only because of him being alive, but also because there were a few items on the boat that belonged to him. I intended to plant them on the mountain he hiked on but without me getting lost in the process. This now was no longer necessary. Now, since I had no way to put him on my crew-list, I signed out already, he decided to bunk with the boat he came with to Tahiti, Captain Bryan on "Star gap". They did not go along very well, but Bryan did assigned him his forward cabin for the next day and I left the next morning to get propane with Chris and after we said our "Good bye's", he returned to "Star gap" and I left for Rarotonga.
The picture here is of a Polynesian warrior and performer of the traditional Polynesian dances and is from the Marquesas.
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