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READER'S DIGEST
CONDENSED BOOKS
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READER'S DICES!
CONDENSED BOOKS
VOLUME 4 -1973

THE READER'S DIGEST AttGGIATicjjk',


PEJASANTVILLt, NEW YORK,,
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READER'S DIGEST CONDENSED BOOKS
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Editor: John T. Beaudouin
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Managing Editors: Walter W. Meade, Anthony Wethered
Senior Editors: Ann Berryman, Doris E. Dewey (Copy
John S. Zinsser, Jr
Jr.
Robert L. Reynolds, Jane Siepmann, Jean N. Willcox, _
Patricia W.Tamawsky, Frances Travis
Associate Editors: Istar H. Dole, Marcia Drennen,
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Executive Editor: Stanley E. Chambers
Senior Editors: Marion C. Conger, Herbert H. Lieberman
Associate Editors: Elizabeth Stifle, John Wafsh
Art Editors: William Gregory, Marion Davis, Thomas
Von Der Linn
Art Research: Katherine Kelleher
Sen/or Copy Editors: Olive Farmer, Anna H, Warren
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Associate Copy Editors: Jean E. Aptakin, Catherine T. Brown,
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Alice Murtha, Barbara P. Stafford
Research Editor: L.inn Carl

LTI/ra

A\' :/. '1 / i AC. ** '

,i

The condensations in this volume have been created by The Readers Di f[est
Association, Inc., and are used by permission of and special arrangement
wrtn
the publishers and the holders of the respective copyrights.
With the exception of actual personages identified as such, the characters and
incidents in the fictional selections in this volume are entirely the products
of the
authors imaginations and have no relation to any person or event tn real
life.

The original editions of the books in this volume are published and
copyrighted as follows:

La Balsa, published at $7.95 by Readers Digest Press


1973 by Vital Alsar and Enrique Lopez
The Sunbird, published at $7.95 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
1972 by Wilbur A. Smith
State Trooper, published at $6.95 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
1973 by Noel B. Gerson

the Search for Anna Fisher published


,
at $6.95 by Arthur Fields Books, Inc.
1973 by Florence Fisher
Mrs. Starr Lives Alone, published at $5.95 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
1971 by Jon Godden
1973 by The Reader's Digest Association, Inc .

1973 by The Reader's Digest Association (Canada) Ltd.


FIRST EDITION
95
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or parts
thereof in any form. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 50-12721
Printed in the United States of America .
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CONTENTS
W( II 'km\
{Vi V
'

^rjly ,'3j6
LA BALSA
The Longest Raft Voyage in History
by Vital Alsar
with Enrique Hank Lopez
PUBLISHED BY READER'S DIGEST PRESS

93
. THE SUNBIRD
by Wilbur Smith
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY

*
263
STATE TROOPER
by Noel B. Gerson
PUBLISHED SY DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY
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As their raft bobbed away from the coast


of Ecuador, they were fully aware of the perils
they faced. Along their 8600-mile route to
Australia lay some of the worst weather
in the world and treacherous reefs that could
destroy them in a moment. They might succumb
to starvation or thirst, or to attack by the
sharks that would be with them all the way.
And could four men a Spaniard, a Frenchman,
a Canadian and a Chilean endure six months
on a tiny floating prison without bitter,

even fatal, quarrels?


Vital Alsar was convinced that the ancient
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Survival depends on the total cooperation


of all men whether their world is a raft,
a village, a country, or a planet.
-Vital Alsar

We began out journey on one of those dark moonless nights that


my superstitious grandmother would have called a bad time for
starting anything, ;
V
Twohours past midnight on May 29, 1970, as the tidal cur-
rents of the Rio Guayas began to ebb, a small dumpy tugboat
edged toward the dock to take La Balsa under tow. had We
hoped to make the first stage of our voyage from Guayaquil,
Ecuador, under sail. But after watching the rivers unpredictable
currents, we had sought the help of a local tugboat captain to guide
u$ out to sea. ,
1

Even so, down the river and across the


the 120-mile journey
turbulent Gulf of Guayaquil would take almost three days, since
we could be towed only at low speed. And from the moment the
bowline snapped taut, the raft seemed to hold back, like a fi ghting
bull clinging to its querencia, that special area of the bullring
where it feels safe.
The raft must know something we don't, said Gabriel Tit
senses danger out there.
No, it just doesnt like being towed, I replied. Rafts like to
ride with the winds and the currents, and they show how unhappy
they are in these conditions. Anyway, well reach the ocean safely.

were many
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We did know that the equatorial
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ingly cold, that there were untold numbers of treacherous reefs,
that sharks would trail us almost daily, that we might fight among
ourselves, be crushed by a ship on a fog-shrouded night, or die of
But we never spoke of these possibilities.
starvation or thirst.
That morning the sun rose behind us, revealing the tropical
beauty of the Ecuador coast. The Gulf of Guayaquil was rougher
than we had expected. In the excitement of the previous night I

had been almost unaware of the rafts motion. My attention was


focused on the last-minute stashing away of supplies and equip-
ment. Now I became aware of the jerky, lurching movements of the
raft, and the splashing of waves across the bow.

My stomach felt it first, a faint queasiness, like serpents moiling


inside me. Then I staggered to the stern and vomited. When I
told Marc about the snakes in my gut, he laughed, and told me
to go and fie down.
The following day, however, Marc, Gabriel, and Normand were
That evening we tried to take our minds off our discom-
also sick.
fort by playing poker. In the pale, quivering light of a lantern
hanging from the low cabin ceiling, I studied my three companions.
The oldest was Marc Modena, a weather-beaten man of forty-
four with a gentle sense of humor. We sometimes called him
Pdpere (Grandpa). His long angular nose and firm mouth ap-
peared to be carved from granite, and his scraggly beard con-
cealed a strong chin. Marc had sailed with me on the ill-fated raft,
Pacifica, which sank near the Galapagos Islands in 1966, nearly
costing us our lives. He lived with his wife and two daughters in
Montreal, where he managed a restaurant: he was thus the ideal
principal chef and supply master. He was also an experienced
sailor, having been for five years a signalman in the French Navy.
Our youngest crew member was Normand Tetreault, twenty-six
years old and a Canadian. Because of his thick, bushy light hair
and beard, we called him LHomme du Bois ( Man of the Woods )
Quiet and shy, although quick to smile, he found most conversation
a chore. Frequently he had only one comment: Oh boy, but he
could say it in so many different ways that it became a new two-
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word language. An industrial designer with a lifelong love of sail-
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The pessimist of our crew was Gabriel Salas, a twenty-seven-


year-old Chilean geologist. Full of charm and quick intelligence,
he had blue-gray eyes that brimmed with mischief. He had been
hitchhiking around South America and happened to arrive in
Guayaquil as we began
building our raft He im-
mediately volunteered to
help us, working as hard as
anyone else. I knew, with-
out his having to tell me,

that he to sail withwanted


us. But
thought he might 1

be too much of a hippie


too unstable for the long
haul. He wrote poetry in
his spare time and fre-
quently talked about po-
Normand, Gabriel, and Marc, with Minet,
litical revolutions. I had the"fifth crew member.

reserved judgment on him,


hoping to find out how serious he was, but finally I asked, Will
you come with us, Gabriel?
He responded with a wild Yippee!"" Then he reached into the
pocket of his trousers and took out a gold coin worth fifty dollars.
Take this, he said. I know the rest of you have contributed a lot
more, but it's all 1 have.
Curiously, all of us were about the same height and weight
around five feet ten or eleven inches, and from 160 to 170 pounds.
Consequently we could sleep in equal spaces inside our twelve
by-seven-foot cabin, which was only four and a half feet high at
itshighest point
At the end of the second day most of us were still seasick and
miserable. Our progress would be smoother when we reached the
open sea. As we approached that vast expanse, however, Gabriel
was unable to mask his natural skepticism. Could we actually sail
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XI
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8600 miles, twice as far as Thor Heyerdahls Kon-Tiki? Although
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thought we would fail. For beyond the Tahitian island where


Heyerdahl had finally pulled his waterlogged raft ashore, we
would face 4300 additional miles of some of the most treacherous
seas in the world. Huge coral reefs, sometimes hundreds of miles
long, would block our path like jagged petrified monsters half-
submerged in angry waves.
Vice-Admiral Samuel Fernandez of the Mexican Navy had given
me charts of the South Seas, but he had warned: Many reefs,
even some large ones, havent been charted yet. And thousands of
small ones are lying just below the surface, unseen traps that
never get on a map. The vast stretch of water between Samoa
and Australia would be especially hazardous for a craft without
radar, and night sailing would be as chancy as Russian roulette.
Hundreds of vessels had been torn apart in this region.
Youre crazy, Vital! exclaimed an old Mexican friend. How
can you possibly avoid those reefs without a motor or radar?
Thats why Im going, I said. To prove that a simple raft can
be navigated on the most treacherous seas. All the way across the
Pacific.
There was considerable method in our madness. I had spent
countless days in the naval archives and libraries of Mexico,
Ecuador, and Peru, poring through time-yellowed documents,
copying sketches of balsa rafts which the Huancavilca Indians
were still sailing when the Spaniards arrived in the New World,
and studying the pre-Columbian Indians amazing navigation
techniques. Captain Bartolome Ruiz, one of Pizarros most skilled
navigators, reported to the king of Spain that the Indians had de-
veloped safer and better ways of sailing the coastal waters of South
America than anything he had seen in Europe. He particularly
mentioned the special keel boards, or guaras, which gave the
Huancavilcas such control of their balsa rafts that they actually
maneuvered more effectively than the Spanish galleons.
The distinguished Argentine anthropologist Juan Moricz offers
strong evidence of long voyages across the Pacific on these ancient
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winds and the use of astronomy in navigation.
Unlike our friends, my wife, Denise, never tried to dissuade me
from the voyage. Sometimes her mother would try to provoke an
objection, asking such questions as: Why must Vital desert his
two children? Has he no concern for them? Doesnt he love you?
Denise would simply shrug her shoulders. Well be all right,
Mother. You dont understand Vital. Hes got to prove whatever
hes got to prove, and he wont rest until he does. Nor will I. So
please dont interfere. But I knew that the prospect of becoming
a young widow was never far from her mind.
Preoccupied by thoughts of my family, I hardly noticed that the
Gulf of Guayaquil had been receding and the water had turned
from a murky brown to a clear bright green. The Pacific stretched
before us.
Were here! yelled Gabriel.
We
all cupped handfuls of water and joyously splashed it on

our faces. With a ceremonial blast of its foghorn tire tugboat cast
us adrift on the open sea. We felt a mixture of optimism and awe.
We would be alone now on this giant body of water that would
feed us, wash us, carry us toward our goal or perhaps kill us at any
moment. In our enthusiasm we almost forgot to thank the captain
of the tugboat He had cast off the heavy manila towline at his
end, yelling that he was donating it to La Balsa as he circled ,

around us before heading back to port.


The captain probably knows something hes not telling us,
suggested Gabriel with a mock frown.
Maybe its the sharks, said Marc. He pointed to a couple of
dorsal fins slicing through the water behind us.
What monsters! said Gabriel. They must be ten feet long.
Youd better get used to them, I said. Theyll be with us all
the way.
Freed of the towline, our raft floated with remarkable ease. I
was thankful for the care we had taken in selecting the balsa logs,
and the hours we had put into the rafts construction.

*3
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expedition had begun weeks before in Quito, the
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guides, following the precepts of their ancestors, had advised us
never to cut down a balsa tree until there is a crescent moon, when
the sap has drained from the trunk. Such sap-drained trees are
called female, while the heavier sap-filled ones are male. So we
had waited patiently for a waning moon, determined to find
seven female trees that would resound with a hollow thooong when
slapped with the heel of the hand.
It was a bright cool morning when we left Quito, crowded into

a Land-Rover. When the dirt roads became too narrow, we left

the car in a small village and proceeded on foot, with all our camp-
ing and woodcutting gear perched on the backs of three sturdy
mules. As we made our way slowly down the mountainside, ulti-
mately descending some ten thousand feet, I was dazzled by the
dramatic landscape. Here the western slope of the Andean range
dipped abruptly to the jungle far below, with paths that teetered
on the edge of deep gorges. Progressing single file along the wind-
we hugged the walls for safety.
ing precipices,
With each downward loop of the path the air grew warmer and
damper. Clouds of rising vapor obscured the way ahead. It was
like walking into a hothouse. As we neared the jungle floor, the soft
clay banks of streams, lush with moss, yielded a bewildering array
of ferns and giant plants with leaves like elephant ears. Lizards
and snakes slithered in and out, vibrating the leaves behind them.
The birds were highly visible in their brilliant plumage and
incredibly vocal.
They apparently dont like Spaniards and Frenchmen, said
Don Cesar Iglesias, our lumber expert, teasingly. Tve never heard
them act like this before.
Our guides, who were native to the region, could locate as if
by instinct the best balsa forests in Ecuador. Time and again, as
we came upon a cluster of balsas, they would slap a tree trunk and
listen. If it hadnt the precise hollowness they expected, one of

them would mumble to Don Cesar, and he would translate.


That trunk is too macho,
Macho? asked Normand.
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Don Cesar winked. Your friend Vital knows all about the
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and female balsa wood after our unsuccessful Pacifica voyage.
The logs of that raft had rotted away in mid-ocean. To avoid
another such disaster, I had decided to learn more about balsa.
After reading all the literature I could find, I had gone to the
Institute National de Investigaciones Forestales in Mexico City to
talk with experts. I had also spent many hours studying the in-
through a high-powered micro-
tricate internal structure of balsa
scope, then floating numbered
wood in a tub of
pieces of the
water to register the degree of buoyancy of each one. Conse-
quently, when I met Don Cesar I was crammed full of infor-
mation about balsa. Annoyed by my arrogance, he had decided
to challenge me one night.
Okay, he had said, placing seven pieces of balsa wood on a
table. Tell me which are the best ones to use on a raft.
Weighing each one in my hand and examining the exposed
ends, I had said, This one's too macho this is in between this
. . . . . .


is two-thirds female this one macho
. . this a good female
. . . .

Right down the line, with very little hesitation.


Don Cesar was obviously thinking about that incident now as we
slogged through the jungle, searching for trees.
Finally we found a cluster of the right gender. Although the
females were lighter than the sap-filled machos the log cut from ,

each tree trunk probably weighed a ton. Watching our helpers


tug and strain, hauling the huge logs one by one to die riverbank,
I felt a certain anxiety as to how well they would float.

My doubts vanished, however, as each log hit the water with a


great splash, then quickly bobbed up onto the surface. Most trees
will float, but balsas can be maneuvered almost like plastic ducks

in a bathtub, With hardly any effort we lashed the logs together


with liana vines. Then we loaded this temporary raft with bamboo
for later use, and climbed on; it took the additional weight without
losing any of its buoyancy.
We shoved off from the riverbank into the swirling current that
would carry us some 125 miles downstream to our construction
)

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shore, waving,
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site at Guayaquil.
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immediately. Unlashing our seven logs, we slowly


struction
the closest fit between their
rotated one and then another, to find
operation, and he handled
contours. Marc was in charge of this
for the best pairings.
the balsas with infinite care, searching

Supervised by Don Cesar Igiesias,


native workers strip bark from
balsa logs in the Ecuadorian
jungle (left). At.Guayaquil the fogs
are rotated to find the best
pairings (near right) before being
taken ashore for shaping and
grooving (far right).

Hes a born matchmaker, observed Normand.


It will be a strange match, I said. Theyre all females.
-
And how will four machos like us sustain a life together for
six months? Marc asked.
The question had been there in the back of my mind, persistent

as a toothache. How do four men live together, twenty-four hours


a day, for six months, in a cramped floating prison cell? We had
all heard of prisoners going stir crazy, sometimes killing each other
on the tiniest provocation. Obviously we couldnt expect to have
found four perfectly stable individuals. But if we were lucky,
our neuroses might prove complementary. We needed introverts
and extroverts, optimists and pessimists, romantics and realists,
conservatives and liberals a mixed bag of human strengths and
weaknesses. Moreover, we had to establish a modus vivendi
that would minimize friction and prevent a fatal blowup.

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Consequently, one evening about a week after our arrival at
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I leaned back in my chair at the Hosteria Madrid, the
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the subject as casually as possible. Tve been thinking we should
have some guidelines, I said.
Like the division of work? asked Marc.
Well, that s important. But I mean our relationship to each

other. On a long journey in such close quarters we re bound to


get on each other s nerves from time to time. I hesitated, search-
ing for the right words. First, we should never violate each othe/s
personal space. We should neverunder any circumstances
touch each other. No horseplay, no wrestling
But why? interrupted Gabriel. If its only playing . .

That s just the point, I replied. Once you have violated


another mans space, even in fun, it will be easier to touch him in
anger. So we have to imagine that each of us is surrounded by an
invisible bubble of privacy that must never be shattered. And
another thing, we must never criticize each other.
Gabriel softly drummed on the table with his fingers. You think
even a small criticism could blow up into a fight?
Precisely. When you start to complain about a mans eating
habits or his snoring it makes no difference that youre only

17
hange E hange E
XC di XC di
F- t F- t
PD

PD
La Balsa

or

or
!

!
W

W
O

O
N

N
Y

Y
U
joking-human nature dictates that he will end up hating you.

U
B

B
to

to
ww

ww
om

om
k

k
lic

lic
You want us to become saints, said Marc.
C

C
.c

.c
w

w
tr re tr re
.

.
ac ac
k e r- s o ft w a
For about six monidis, until we get to Australia. Then we can be k e r- s o ft w a

humans again/'
The following morning I was up early to check the progress
on our raft. Marc had indeed performed the best marriage
between the seven logs, with the longest, a forty-two-foot trunk,
in the middle. Their for-
ward ends were cut on a
diagonal to form a pointed
bow. We then bound them
together with thick hemp
ropes, presoaked in water
for added pliancy, carefully
fitting the ropes into paral-
lel grooves we had carved
into the logs. To preserve
the logs, Marc coated their
undersides with crude oil.

_
The
, L
takes shape as heavy crossbeams
raft
Now we were ready to
.

are lashed across the logs. starton the superstructure.


Four heavy beams were laid
and firmly secured with one-inch hemp. Then
across the base logs
a deck of split bamboo was placed across the beams, creating
narrow storage spaces between the deck and the logs. The deck
itself was covered with mats of woven reeds.

It was slow, tedious work: hundreds of knots had to be tied with


great precision, for if only a few were carelessly tied, our raft
might rip apart in mid-ocean. I found myself rechecking some that
Gabriel had tied near the starboard stern. Each one was perfect.
When I saw Normand checking my knots, I laughed. We're all
spies, I said. No one trusts anyone.
Gabriel was no less vigilant when we started to build the cabin,
checking everyone's handiwork as if he were a straw boss on a
construction gang. We've got to be careful with the roof, I said.
If it comes loose in a high wind, it'll be like a second sail Thus
we took special pains with the walls of woven bamboo reeds and
x8

I
hange E hange E
XC di XC di
F- t F- t
PD

PD
or

or
!

!
W

W
O

O
N

N
with the roof
Y
made from bamboo

Y
U slats and tough, pliable banana

U
B

B
to

to
ww

ww
om

om
leaves.
k

k
lic

lic
C

C
.c

.c
w

w
tr r efront ra t e
we ar
.

.
k e r - s o In
ac a of the cabin erected the 30-foot mast: two poles cke
ft w r- s o ft w
of hard, durable mangrove wood, tied at the top to form an in-
verted V. Atop this was a small crows nest and a flagpole from
which, in good weather, we would fly the Spanish colors.
The sail was a rectangle of strong canvas, 18 feet wide and 21
feet high. In a moment of
whimsy I decorated it with
a huge bright-red sun, in
the center of which I
painted a sketch of La
Balsa There wasnt room
.

for a spare sail, but we had


plenty of needles and
thread for repairs.
Perhaps the raffs most
advantageous feature was
its set of g uaras, vertical
keel boards, or center-
Complete but for the mast, La Balsa prepares
boards, each two feet wide to enter the water.
and six to eight feet long.
Situated between the logs, they protruded under the raft like
multiple fins three in a V-shaped formation near the bow, two
under the cabin, and four in a straight line at the stern.
Ecuadorian fishermen, who steer their balsa rafts much as
their ancestors did, had shown us how the guaras were used. To
steer the raft from left to right, we would slide the starboard
(right) guaras deeper into the water while pulling the portside
(left) guaras out of the water. The most important were the
guaras at the comers of the stern. These would have to be shifted
to compensate for winds blowing from an angle. Although simple,
the technique is crucial to keeping a raft on a steady course.
The final addition was a tall dignified throne of choice balsa
wood, with a large hole in the seat like an old-fashioned privy.
And thafs exactly what it was an amphibious toilet, which we
perched on a special portside shelf hanging over the water.

19 t* 1 ;
hange E hange E
XC di XC di
F- t F- t
PD

PD
or

or
!

!
La

W
Balsa

O
N

N
Y

Y
U

U
B

B
Several weeks later, our raft completed, we proudly inspected
to

to
ww

ww
om

om
k

k
lic

lic
cable, or metal spike had been
C

C
.c

.c
r ework. Not a single nail, wire
w

w
tr our tr re
.

.
ac ac
k e r- s o ft w a k e r- s o ft w a
used. We wanted La Balsa to duplicate, as closely as possible,
those ancient craft that had been navigated across the Pacific
thousands of years before.

2
The day we left port, fifty or sixty friends and skeptics came
aboard our little raft at Guayaquil to wish us well or to shake
their heads with dismay. One optimist was Senora Paladines, the
wife of a local doctor. Wearing a floppy hat and a flowery dress,
she carried in her white-gloved hands a scrawny black and white
kitten. IPs a mascot, for good luck! she exclaimed.
But its only a baby, I protested. This is going to be a rough
journey.
Kittens are always good luck, she said.
One potbellied old sailor said, Two or three days is all I give
this thing before the logs start soaking up water like a sponge.
The doctors wife cut him short. Nonsense, she said. La Balsa
will go all the way to Australia.
Grateful as I was to her, I was not happy with the mascot she'd
given us. We already had four pets: a much older cat, Coco s; a
large parrot, Lorita; and two smaller parrots. I would have to give
this fragile little creature away before setting sail.
More pressing matters, however, demanded our immediate at-
tention. Our secondhand radio a patchwork of Japanese tubes,
German condensers, an American tuning device, and Ecuadorian
adhesive tape suddenly went dead. Joe Megan, an American
who happens be president of one of Ecuadors largest elec-
to
tronics companies, helped us fix it, warning us that it probably
wouldnt transmit anything beyond a few hundred miles.
We hardly listened to such talk as we loaded our storage area
with 5 2, gallons of fresh water, kerosene for our small stove, gaso-
line to run the radios generator, extra rope, a few books, medi-
cines, and fishing gear.
Marcs special concern was the food supply. In a wooden box
20

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