November 2007 2007

Hello everyone,

People sometimes ask me whether it's not too hard, after spending months on end, sometimes even a year, at the other end of the world, to find myself again, suddenly, in the middle of show-business, invited by the most famous names in French television, and having to face the technical, economical and practical problems linked to a stay in a big city. I reckon I manage rather well, maybe, as a good friend once told me, "because I come from far away , so I've got a lot of momentum", so doors open up rather easily in front of me, and the motion is enough to keep me standing up (like someone on a bicycle, kept vertical because of the speed); and although it is true that show-business is a tough business, where you are more often hurt than you are honored, yet I meet lots of sympathetic people, and their kindness is enough to keep away any doubt that might try to overtake me...

And also, when I miss my sailboat, I just have to visit Google Earth to look at it in its anchorage off Raivavae, in the Austral islands, or to sort through my collection of photographs to find the picture of Akamaru, where I will cast anchor next December (it happens to be the opening picture of my film -Tahiti, return to Paradise-, which I sometimes show in my tour of lectures throughout France.)

And I also am lucky enough to have been able to retain through the years, against all odds, my farm in the Central Mountains of France, lost among hills and forests, and where solitude is almost as strong as at sea. With lots of sheep, fields and oak trees ( and, with a bit of luck, at their foot a couple of big , delicious mushrooms) ; here, diesel fuel is not used to turn a propeller, but to move the tractor in its perpetual fight against bushes and thorns...