Spring! The perfect antidote for State crookery

VALENTINE'S DAY might well be a happy loving day for many, but it's a celebration that turns the corners down for me.

In that secret trial in which I was victimised, the former Customs Department prosecution added yet one more untruth to their deceiving of a gullible, decidedly landlubber jury.

When I sailed towards Cape Town from the North Atlantic, disobliging winds in the Roaring Forties had stopped me from sailing east.

However, the wind angle was sufficient to allow me to head towards St Helena.

A dismasted mini-yacht

 I know the island well, had reached it in an extraordinary survival voyage in a dismasted mini-yacht, and was only too happy on my swallowing-the-anchor voyage to meet up with Saints (as they are nicknamed) who had been so hospitable.

 A few days later, when conditions favoured it, I headed for the Cape.

 The prosecution made this astonishing claim, which - forgive me - I have mocked on this site before: I went to St Helena to 'lay low'.

Isn't St Helena a British dependency and surely South Africa a republic?

 Most of us don't need fresh geography lessons to know it and to realise which of the two might be more suited to 'laying low'.

Deceiving, unconscionable people

These deceiving, unconscionable people stuck to the silly claim, and the jury went along with it.

What I didn't know then is that once a jury has announced its 'considered' decision, the heavens are not strong enough to change it.

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventuring book, Sailing to Purgatory, at
http://sailingtopurgatory.com/index.php/feeds/489-spring-the-perfect-antidote-for-state-crookery