It looks as if the prison gates will open up for me at the end of March or the beginning of April. I have done my time, and so the time has come to move on once more, aiming for mountains and a change of scenery…

I long for fresh high altitude air, for the sound of cowbells, for a smoking cup of coffee on a chilly morning. I miss looking up to find my horizon instead of aiming low. I can’t wait to be driving (with both my feet!) along a sinuous narrow road. I deeply, almost desperately need to be flying under my paraglider’s canopy, high in the sky, reading invisible air patterns and looking down at the world.

And yes, I will miss dearly everything I had grown so used to about island life. Once my roots have been pulled out of the sand, no more walking barefoot, no more diving, no more laziness, no more tropical sun.

I’ll miss too, surprisingly, the local beach bar nightly gatherings, where two dozen brothers and sisters exchange daily local gossip in an ever-forgiving, optimistic way, while complaining bitterly about the small miseries of our golden prison.

As Nicolas Peyrac once sang it, “Je pars”.