Bum Voyage!
I CHECKED TWICE TO MAKE SURE that I was reading it correctly. Unfortunately I was.
“Frenchman to float across the Atlantic – in a barrel.”
Me: “Geezer to get up and to not spill coffee.”
That Frenchman has his challenges. I have mine.
Some people just have more ambition I guess, but some of those people also have more in the way of daily medications.
It seems that a 71 year old Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Savin, is currently afloat in the Atlantic Ocean in his very own home-built barrel – on purpose. His eventual goal is to reach an island; any island would do, in the Caribbean by the end of March. He has stated that he hopes that he comes ashore on a French owned island because, “That would be easier for the paperwork and for bringing the barrel back.” It’s nice to see he isn’t going into this adventure without thinking about the tricky things.
Monsieur Savin bobbed off on his trip a couple of days before Christmas hoping to ride the ocean currents off of the Canary Islands at a blistering one to two miles per hour. Those 2850 miles across the Atlantic to Barbados should just whiz by.
If I was feeling the urge to undertake a long journey I would do something different that this Frenchman. I think that I might attempt to cross the continent one four-star hotel at a time. In honor of Monsieur Savin I would go the entire distance on the European Plan.
Being a true Frenchman, Monsieur Savin has provisioned himself with wine and foie gras. I hope that he also has a good supply of Dramamine. That barrel may be technically seaworthy, but the QE2 it ain’t. There is no dancing on the Lido Deck, but when it comes to dinner seating he is always at the Captain’s table. Of course, he’s also the busboy and the chambermaid. The life of a sailor is tough.
If you are realllly interested on the daily, foot by foot progress of this slow motion sea cruise that puts the Odd back in Odyssey, you can follow it on Facebook. I have trouble getting anything posted, but this guy, inside of what looks like a collection of melted traffic cones, is better connected than Zuckerberg (Just kidding, Mark).
When I first saw this story I wondered to myself (because no one near me wanted to listen to me talk about it) what condition was Monsieur Savin in when he said to himself, “Sacre Bleu! I have a good idea. I’ll make a barrel in my garage and then float across the Atlantic! Bartender! Another round for me and my Psychiatrist!”
That’s just speculation on my part, but…I bet I’m pretty close.
According to CNN this “Popeye of the Champs de Elysees” has a military background to prepare him for the arduous journey. Unfortunately he was a Paratrooper, so I’m not exactly sure what skills may appropriately transfer to his new life in a barrel.
This trip across the ocean will be long, uncomfortable, (It was not designed by “Better Homes and Barrels”) and I think boring. I do wish him a safe journey, but I don’t want to be there when he open the hatch on his barrel after three months at sea. Phew!
Down the Hall on Your Left 