The Doldrums
The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone is a band of weather where the Northern Hemisphered winds meet the Southern Hemisphere winds in an area that approximates five degrees on either side of the Equator. Because of the heat in that zone, it is typical that the air is driven straight up, leaving a noticeable lack of surface wind and thus creating a becalming situation for sailors. The doldrums are thus characterized as a time of low energy, sadness and boredom as well as an abject lack of enthusiasm. This listlessness takes place most often in the summer, which is generally because of the heat and humidity.
After a very active month with family and friends, I find myself in the doldrums. I am sleeping OK and nothing really hurts too much, my hip discomfort seemingly eliminated by my swimming or stretching or other PT-oriented exercises. The weather is seasonally warm and I am experiencing a temporary lull in my expert witness activity after two busy months. We don’t have any trips planned for another five weeks when we will be taking a motorcycle trip through the Maritime Provinces, starting in Nova Scotia. That kicks off a busy fall with a follow-on roadtrip up to Oregon and California Gold Mining country, then probably a holiday visit to Solvang when the Christmas festival begins, and wrapping up the year with our traditional Christmas visit to NYC. In between I will have lots and lots of reports and testimony due on my expert witness cases, but that’s not something that can be done until its due.
So, the good news is that I know these doldrums have a finite nature to them and that things will certainly get busy soon enough. But in the meantime, I am lolling around feeling sorry for myself wondering what to do. I already bought a new toy in my Apple Vision Pro and that’s all good, but I have no interest in buying any other toys. I have a few odd jobs to do in the garden, like replanting the ponytail palms at the entry. I will do that this morning and then run an errand and then…who knows. It’s a bit too warm for a motorcycle ride. Its a bit too warm for anything too strenuous. I suppose I could finally get around to doing my taxes, but I worry that would just add to my depression since there is nothing fun or uplifting about doing taxes, as much as I really don’t mind paying them.
I think I need a project of some sort to occupy myself. One idea is to start to gather information and ideas about our Viking Journey around Cape Horn. We will spend 7 days on the Chilean side and then 11 days on the Argentine side, including a stop in the Falkland Islands, which can be considered as a British protectorate or an Argentine possession (The Malvinas). I have a lot of history with those two countries and especially with the history of the Falklands/Malvinas war. From 1985 until 1999. I had regular reasons for going to both chili and Argentina for business in the years 1985 until 1990. I probably went to both Santiago and Buenos Aires a dozen times each. Those were the days when I was running first Latin American Merchant Banking, and then the Emerging Markets Department. Those are heady years for me since I was charged with retrieving $4 billion of bad sovereign debt from these countries which made me a critical person in the survival of my bank. When I started, I was a vice president who was 30 years old and when I finished, I was Managing Director of 35 years.
Then after hiatus a few years during other things for the bank, I return of the area in 1993 and spent six more years traveling to the region running the global private banking business. In between those two assignments, I had a very interesting sojourn to Buenos Aires that occurred in 1990. I had to go to Buenos Aires for three weeks on special assignment to act as the merchant banker for Robert Maxwell, the infamous British newspaper tycoon who had decided to make multiple investments Argentina, for reasons known only to him. During that stay, the British and Argentine governments decided to normalize their relationship which had been awry since the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war. Since the British government was still a bit sore about this 74 day mini war that they were forced to conduct, they didn’t want to send an official delegation to Argentina for the celebration around ending the hostilities. Since Robert Maxwell happened to be in Argentina, and despite the fact that he was considered a bit of a joke to the British government, he was asked to represent England at the ceremonial dinner. That dinner was held at the Casa Rosada, which is the same palace made famous by Evita Peron.
Captain Bob Maxwell (as he was known to us), was a man who loved pomp and ceremony, so he needed an entourage to join him. I was given the honor of being his “Right Hand Man“ so I was seated at his right hand next to an Argentine general and across from president Melem of Argentina. It was quite a memorable experience, and it gave me a rather interesting memory of the Falklands/Malvinas war that I will be reminded of when our cruise stops in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands.
Strangely enough, I probably have even more memories of Chile than I do of Argentina. Chile occupied disproportionate amount of our attention back in the 1980s when the dictator Augusto Pinochet was still in power. Pinochet was the man who held a coup to displace and ultimately kill Salvador Allende, the communist, but freely elected president of the country. that it occurred in 1973 and he had been in power ever since. Between 1985 and 1990 I probably met the man four times but he was in the later stages of his dictatorship, what we jokingly called his brown suit days. it was particularly interesting to me because I was in college studying government and he economics in 1973 when the coup took place and it almost caused me to go to graduate school to study modern revolutions. How strange to be in Chile doesn’t years later doing business with Pinochet while he was trying hard to work himself out of his dictatorship. The results of those meetings was that we ended up, swapping our debt for the largest pension fund and insurance company in the country which in the decade following thatmade about $1 billion for our bank.
I’ve been back to both Santiago and Buenos Aires since those days, but I don’t think I will ever forget those highlights. I’m already imagining a few good dinner stories on board our Viking ship, regaling my fellow travelers with those tall tales. Since those two cities are at either end of our 18 day trip, there’s a lot of time in between to see the fjords of Chile, the far reaches of Patagonia near the Drake Passage and the countryside of Argentina and the Falkland Islands. It’s that part of the trip that I want to be sure are not left in the doldrums.