November 2006

Hello everyone,

There are journeys when I eventually forget on which ocean or on which continent I am: take, for instance, this crazy round-the-world trip, in five weeks, I have just completed, with a triple purpose:

- to spend two days in Phuket, Thailand, to act in the two next ads for my sponsor, the French chain of optometrists ATOL : it's number 14 and 15 in this veritable saga : in these two, I can be seen surfing and kite-boarding... really, nowadays, with special effects, anything's possible ! I haven't seen the final cut yet, but I bet it's something!

- to spend twenty-four hours in Paris to settle the details of the publication of my autobiography : it is going to be published in two successive volumes, the first one in march 2007 ... it deals with the years 1944-1974 ( the year I left France and show business to go sailing); the second volume, dealing with my sailing years, from 1974 to today, will be published at the end of 2008; I would have liked the whole thing to be published in one tome, but it would have been over one thousand pages !

- to film for two weeks the wonders of Western America's natural parks ( I told you about it in my October letter), then two more weeks to film the colors of fall foliage in Quebec and Vermont. I cannot hide the fact that I've been a little disappointed; I had always seen wonderful colors in autumn in that area, freezing temperatures giving the leaves bright colors unknown in Europe. This fall, no freezing, and red trees were scarce; we have managed yet to shoot beautiful scenery, but it is not what I expected; could this be still another consequence of global warming? It's possible; If this subjects preoccupies you, you should read the book written by Al Gore, presidential candidate against Bush and a fierce environmentalist: "An inconvenient truth". It shows with a vast number of photographs the sad evolution of the past thirty years, especially in ice latitudes, showing that global warming is a reality.

At the end of this round-the-world journey, it's been a pleasure to return to my catamaran Banana Split in Moorea; the weather forecast was so good that I could not let it pass, and two and a half days of favourable winds have taken me back to Raivavae, where the Austral spring is still a bit too cool for me... but fine weather will surely return soon.

I wish you a great month of November.