Date: 12 December 2010

Position: Punta del Este 34:57.7S 054:57.0W

Last night was to be the Grand Performance of HMS Pinafore in which I was to take the leading role of the popular, courageous Capt Corcoran. The cameras had been set up for a recording in Technicolour HD Video. The crew (or most of them) and I had spent hours getting into our costumes, putting on the stage make-up and perfecting the sound systems for the recorded music. The hour came. The hour went. Where the hell was Richard, the self-appointed impresario / producer / director? Eventually I found him. He had managed (miraculously, given his girth) to wedge himself into the anchor locker into a foetal position, clasping my very last bottle of cachaçha, sucking his thumb, and mumbling incomprehensibly, his eyes wide and frightened. Without him, the whole performance was off. It was a dramatic failure.

I decided enough was enough. The Drunks had to go. They had drunk me out of boat and home; they were idle and insolent and this was the final straw. So this morning I woke up to read The Riot Act and throw them off.

It didn’t surprise me that they weren’t already on deck polishing the stainless steel as instructed – often they disobeyed my orders and stayed lounging in bed until well after 0700. So I went forward to the crews’ quarters and was amazed to find absolutely nothing. The Drunks had done a runner – they had abandoned ship. The only thing that I found (apart from Lawrence’s cashmere Guchi thong and suntan cream found on the poop deck) was that the walls of their quarters had been covered with graffiti. They had scored the bulkheads with knives with a series of six vertical scars crossed through with a diagonal, almost as if they had been counting off the days of the week, and there were also some pretty offensive remarks about me that had been spray-painted over the top. That’s gratitude for you. Good riddance to them.

But it has left me in a bit of a pickle – I am now stuck in Punta del Este. The only things to recommend the place are the surfeit of excellent bars and restaurants, the endless sandy white beaches and the beautiful women who parade up and down them wearing almost nothing at all. God knows what I’m going to do with myself, sitting alone on my luxury yacht.

Happily, the Downstairs Skipper is coming to the rescue. No sooner had I mentioned my plight to her (she is in Buenos Aires just across the River Plate) than she said she was dropping everything and would rush over at the first opportunity which I hope will be Wednesday. She’s a gem, the DS.