I Can't Dance

Despite having sent several updates on my progress towards the boat, I've received very little. I'm materially nervous that the whole arrangement will fall apart, and I'll have to fly back. Having nailed down only a few days of sailing, that would be an intolerable failure.

Whilst sitting on my hands in front of the machine, I meet an English tourist. He's a Northern lad named Paul. He tells me he's in IT and that he's been learning salsa for five years. I've never met any dancing Northerners. For that matter, I've never met any dancing Englishmen. We don't go in for that sort of thing. Paul is quite enthusiastic about visiting a salsa club and tries to sell it to me on the basis that it will be full of chicks. That's all very well, but as a guy who can't dance, and can't speak conversational Spanish, the project would be a Stretch-Armstrong-stretch of all of my already tenuous abilities. It's a horrible idea. I like wooden pubs and ale. And Metallica. Contrary to sense or logic, I agree to going.

I have a dangerously strong predisposition to agree most things. Any old shit. Whatever's going. I also have an absolute disposition to follow through with everything I agree to. If I agree to something stupid in the heat of the moment, you can be damned sure I'll do that stupid thing in the cold light of the next day. More often than not, it shouldn't, and doesn't, end well, and I shouldn't expect this will be an exception.

On the walk to the salsa discotheque, I want, very much, to back out at great speed, but I can't think of any clever way to do it. I guess, If I can stick it out for forty-five minutes or so, I can run for the hills with integrity intact.

The spirit world has finally thrown something back my way. The club is closed. I feign some degree of disappointment and go so far to entertain a short walk around to try and find another club. Little does Paul know, I'd rather stick my nob in a beehive. Ha! Perfect.