Dear Friends and Family, I may be in the South Pacific but I must say still it is a very "Hobbitish" kind of day. Despite our being in the tropics, it is winter here. It is warm enough for shorts and short sleeves but the rain is falling ever so gently in fine spray that blows about like clouds on soft passing breezes seeming more to drift along the path of least resistance than roar with any playful or destructive intent. The boat is ever so quiet with no real movement other than the sense of floating. I have an inflammation in my eyelid which adds to my quiet inward mood as I steam and compress and rest my eyes. Contentedly burping at my knee is the six gallons of stout beer we lovingly stirred into birth yesterday and which is so happy to be alive today that it frequently blows a whole stream of merry bubbles through the water sealed valve to serenade me. We stirred it into being with my Golden Spoon which being hand carved with love and artistry added to the Tolkien environs. I wonder how all that will affect those who consume the beer in a few weeks. Perhaps they too will become dreamy and snuggly and merry-- but hopefully not too bubbly. It's a comfy kind of day knowing Leleke the local Fijian wood carver with the bright and earnest eyes is sitting comfortably cross legged on a pandanus mat sheltered from the precipitation by the village roadside stand carving all manner of sea animals onto the heart of my cribbage board-a game board originated by a Fatu Hiva wood carver who smoothed a beautiful board for me and carved a traditional Marquesan motif along the perimeter leaving the center shiny smooth and expectantly awaiting the hands of future carvers along the continuing thread of our journey. I grew up playing cribbage. My Grandfather was the finest player of all and many a lazy after holiday feast day passed at the big table in a quiet game of cribbage. My parents still meet up several times a week around twilight at their little table pondside or weather not permitting that cozy in their golden lighted living room for a game of cribbage. John, not particularly fond of the game himself, set up an app on our I-pad so I can keep my game up for family gatherings. By the way, sitting cross legged and barefoot on the floor is the norm here in Fiji and somehow Fijians seem to be able to maintain that position comfortably for hours and hours. The churches usually have no pews but the floors are covered with the beautiful woven mats where everybody sits after removing their shoes. Meetings and welcomings and kava circles and performances all involve sitting on the floor in this manner although sometimes a particularly thoughtful Fijian will supply a chair if he knows vulagi (strangers) will be present. I have just finished Julia Whitty's book about the eastern South Pacific entitled "Fragile Edge" which has left me glowing and humbled and inspired. Reading it I felt as eager and thrilled as one at the brink of a new romance or the same joy I feel when connecting with a new acquaintance whom I feel most assuredly will become a lifelong friend. Superimposed or perhaps weaving through this golden sense of rapture is a twisting and contracting around my heart in recognition of the tragedy of our times-the death of the reefs and our role in this event. We perpetrate a myriad of unconscious wrongs upon the reefs by the catastrophic impact of our thoughtless and greedy over consuming whether it be collecting fancy tropical fish for aquariums and trendy fish for haute cuisine, irresponsible farming which produces reef suffocating silt runoff, re-contouring of paradisal natural lagoons for artificial resort features, collection of endangered species shells for our bookshelves or a plethora of lifestyle choices to which we attach ourselves as necessary but which at least exacerbate global warming. The water is rising faster than the reefs can grow and whole atolls are disappearing. Nations of islanders are relocating from the drowning lands of their heritage where some are as unique as any endemic species evolved over time to survive in a very specific niche. "Eco-refugees" is the new term coined for them as well as for islanders displaced by nuclear testing or disastrous mining. It is the heart break of witnessing the passing of one condemned. Hand and hand with these are the tragedy of whale and dolphin strandings due to Navy Sonar, the tragedy of Giant Manta populations decimated for their fins, the agony of 50 tons of illegally poached ivory tusks (how many tons of elephant would that be?) on a burn pile or the sharks of the world approaching extinction sinking alive and finless to their deaths in the deep while their fins are tossed on ice for shark fin soup or the complete annihilation of the black horned rhino for the supposed aphrodisiac qualities of its horn�.... The list could go on and on. What are we doing to our fellow sentient beings? Why are we content to do it? What gave us the right to kill in the complete absence of need? I recall a bus stop billboard which said "What did you not get about Thou shalt not kill? ---God". Have we yet to evolve beyond the practice of unconscious wanton destruction? Or worse yet, are we conscious but just don't care? One small island nation now literally inundated by the rising sea has filed suit against the US and Australia as the nations leading the list for overall consumption per capita and therefore sharing the most responsibility for the plight they suffer. The US has an overall obesity rate of greater than 30%. That's not just overweight. That's grossly overweight more than 20% beyond ideal body weight or a BMI of 30. That's like carrying a small child along but made of fat! Our deaths are the result of overindulgence and inactivity in the form of heart disease and diabetes. Cancer also pants down our necks while we continue to expose ourselves, our children and our world to persistent organic pollutants, pesticides, food additives and other industrial and agricultural toxins. Years ago I became a vegetarian because I felt no need or right to kill animals. In the last few years I have for the most part abstained from eating dairy because of farming practices and because of persistent organic pollutants which mimic hormones and unavoidably concentrate in milk. I quit buying beautiful shells because it encourages locals to hunt them. I quit collecting beautiful shells-even empty shells-realizing that shell would be needed as a home for some other sea creature. We fitted our boat with a huge solar array to avoid unnecessary use of our engine or generator for power. I try to row our dinghy whenever I can to conserve gasoline. I don't spend energy on heating, air conditioning or even making ice cubes. I cook with a pressure cooker to conserve propane. Life on the boat has made us acutely aware of our footprint. And we could and should and will try to do all these things better every day and just consume less and less. And you know what? When my laundry is blowing dry in the breeze and my boat gets darker inside because the sun sets and I step refreshed from my 1 liter of cold water shower�...I feel happy. When I swim with the fish without hunting them�...I feel happy. As my home made beer bubbles contentedly-I feel content. I live in abundance without too much and it seems that is more than most of the people in the richest places in the world can say since although it is impossible to say exactly how many Americans are on anti-depressants, we all know several who are. Perhaps our over consuming, elite, exclusive, irresponsible lifestyle doesn't make us feel so good after all. Perhaps we could do with a little less and just give away a little more. Being one individual in such a big country can make me feel at times insignificant-- As though my tiny efforts are meaningless. But one thing about being part of a big group is that little things done by big groups have big impacts. With about 314 million people in the U.S. if every one of us recycles a single one liter bottle a day for a year that makes 115 billion bottles! If my math is correct, that is a mountain more than 1500 feet tall with a 1500 by 1500 foot base! Or you could imagine a 150 story high-rise which covers a quarter mile square block! If we each managed to save a single gallon of gas per week in one short year we would save 16.3 billion gallons. That would fill 24,697 Olympic size swimming pools. If we put that fuel in standard 1 liter bottles and lined the bottles up end to end they would reach around the circumference of the moon 1,824 times! If we skip the meat once a week for a year we save 4 billion pounds of beef! That's 4 million cows! It takes about a year to raise a cow so you can imagine how much grain and water is consumed and how much cow manure is produced by 4 million cows every year. If we each skipped a meal or even a single designer coffee a week, something with a value of say $3, and donated the value to a non-profit working for public good�...that adds up to $49 billion. Imagine what we could do with that! If we turn off the light or the TV or turn down the heater or the AC, it saves LOTS of energy. It's the pathetic inactivity of apathy which is killing us and again because of our sheer mass, killing our world. We've taken two and a half years travelling out to faraway places and seeing what is happening here is impossible to ignore. If you don't believe global warming is happening, you should have a look. If you don't know for sure whether global warming is our fault or just a natural cycle, why not make sure it isn't our fault? Let's make a start. What if we all just do a little something beyond whatever we do now? And next week do even more. And each week thereafter make the footprint just a wee bit smaller�...so the oceans can live and the forests can live and all the sentient beings can live �...and perhaps we can truly be happy. Hey, I just realized I have friends who take showers using just a spray bottle to conserve water! I'm going to try it! Vinaka-ta! Much love and may my humble brew bubble on bombastically, --Pat and John S/V The Rose in Suva