Barqueing Mad - Picton Castle World Voyage 2010

15/10/2009

The 1^st interview with Maggie from the Picton Castle was an interesting experience; the electricity had been off for 2 days which meant that I had no water (electric water pump!) and that I was hot, sticky and inevitably bothered. This, combined with a bout of malaria and its associated lack of sleep (and bodily fluids), had rendered me brain-dead and about as focused as Keith Richards after a night out (with Oliver Reed).  The interview began fairly uneventfully, but the fact that the phone kept cutting out every few minutes didn’t help and although my attempts to be chatty and interesting seemed perfectly fine and charming to me, I felt the pauses in conversation weren’t so much due to the delay on the line as to Maggie’s confusion as to what the hell I was going on about!  Despite my obvious lack of mental cohesion the interview ended on a positive note as Maggie stated that she would be contacting my referees and would then be in touch for a follow-up interview.  My heart, my mind (and unfortunately that day, my bowels) were racing with the next important question… If I get accepted, how the hell am I going to raise the $46k needed for this trip of a lifetime?