A first trip ‘round the world, part 19

Having just left South Africa, we now found ourselves in the middle of the Indian Ocean, between Durban and Perth, still battered by a very rough winter sea and again suffering from a horrible seasickness to which neither Jean-Pierre nor I were used to. 

That crossing was 5,200 miles long and took eight days to complete. 

We rarely went out on deck anymore and spent most of our time sleeping, eating, drinking and, when we couldn’t avoid it, dancing. 

Well, there were exceptions; to celebrate his 24th birthday on July 3, after drinking more than a few cocktails, my friend JP had the dubious idea of ​​convincing South African passengers that just boarded in Durban to throw lounge chairs overboard, into the Indian Ocean. 

All of them were caught red handed by the ship security and JP had said in his defense, “We threw these for the sharks, they looked very tired; we thought they’d an opportunity to rest!” 

The crew didn’t appreciate Jean-Pierre’s caustic humor too much, and poor Jean-Pierre and his aids had to reach into their wallets to settle the expense. 

Meanwhile, in France, it was now Marcel's turn to fly to Australia: “I took the same flight as Gérard from Le Bourget, on UTA, with Christophe, Alexis's son, whom I had picked up in Annemasse. Instead of stopping over in Tehran we flew into Athens, Karachi, Colombo among other places. This long trip left us totally exhausted when we made it to Mt Buller the next day! "