Free Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed by Les Powles Page A

aircraft pilot for the Captain of Ports in Sao Luis. When the Port Captain received my letter acknowledging the kindness of the St Lucian people, he could not read it so passed it on to the American to translate.
    â€˜Jesus Chriiiist, this guy doesn’t even know which hemisphere he’s in,’ he had exclaimed and came to inform me.
    I thanked him for his trouble, claiming that I had now recovered my marbles. After a couple of shots of my whisky and his camera, he was gone.
    I had just got my breath back when Tony returned with another visitor who looked like Rock Hudson, except that he had thick grey hair and a deeply tanned face and his baritone voice hinted of a French extraction. Lord knows what effect he had on women, but they were out of luck for he was a French-Canadian priest, Father Le Brun, who had heard of my troubles on his aircraft radio and had flown down to see me. I now had visions of the village airport starting to look like Heathrow.
    He asked two questions, why did I wish to sail around the world alone? And would I go to church that night? I told him about solitude and contentment: of sailing into setting suns, of shoals of flying fish lifting from the bows, of colours beyond the skills of camera or painter which only God could havecreated. I had been having trouble finding words so, to make him understand, I had been using my hands to show fish in flight and dolphins dancing. Yes, I believed in God, but I considered the world to be His church, it was what was in your heart and mind that made you a Christian. There was no necessity to go into a stone building to pray. If Father Le Brun did not understand my reasons for avoiding church, he nevertheless seemed content.
    Later that afternoon I faced another mystery: jazz music blasting from the sky, over as quickly as a squall. That night I was invited to dine with the doctor and his wife and a few friends whose house adjoined the church. We had been enjoying both food and conversation when the musical earthquake struck and windows started to shake. I looked at the walls expecting to see cracks appear before the house disintegrated, calming down only when I noticed that the other guests ignored this interruption. Conversation continued, but now we were lip reading. Then I solved the mystery of the heavenly music. To call the faithful in a 100-mile area, the church was using four loudspeakers instead of bells, one speaker directed into the doctor’s window and my left ear.
    His wife was trying to persuade me to take her to church that night, pretending she was unable to appreciate my reasons for not going. In the end she employed the normal feminine method of getting her way. Earlier I had refused more food although still hungry. She overcame my objections by saying I did not like her cooking so, not wanting to give offence, I had allowed my plate to be filled again. Now she claimed I was ashamed to be seen with her so I had to agree to accompany her to church.
    The village square was crowded and I thankfully turned to go back but mysteriously a path opened up in front of us, people stepping aside as we moved towards the church. Inside it was packed, but again the people let us through. For a moment I panicked, thinking they were going to marry me off to one of the nurses but finally I found myself in front of the pulpit, looking up at Father Le Brun, who was smiling at me. He preached in Portuguese but I recognised my own name and
Solitaire
’s, afterwhich the congregation repeated them the way you might say ‘Amen’, echoing through the speakers to the crowd in the square. Then he used his hands like flying fish and dipped them like dancing dolphins, having clearly understood what I had told him that morning. The scheme to get me to church had been a well-contrived plan involving Mrs Doctor!
    After the service he explained how the villagers wished to bless my voyage but had not anticipated the problem of getting me into church. Had