My mind will not rest.
Down here, it is summer, and the last few days have been rather hot, well, it is summer after all, but tonight it is particularly hot.
So, as I can't sleep, I'm lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, otherwise known as the cinema of my dreams.
Where am I?
Well, it has to be someplace cool, of course.
I have no idea where or when I got sucked into this game of searching for treasure. Boggs had been reading some newspaper article relating to a Spaniard who had survived a shipwreck off the coast and had supposedly come ashore dragging his treasure chest, all that he could save from the sinking ship.
I think my priorities may have been slightly different.
Standing on the beach where Boggs believed the man came ashore, we looked inland at the coastal plain now overbuilt with holiday houses and apartments, behind that, some parkland, under threat from the developers, and behind that, the mountains.
I could guess what Boggs was going to say next.
"It has to be somewhere in the mountains, a cave perhaps."
My map told me there was a mountain face for about 25 miles in either direction and rising to two to three thousand feet up. I didn't calculate the area, I just considered it big.
"If he came ashore here, dragging a heavy chest, and barring all of this building, he would take the most direct route inland."
He pointed in the direction he thought the Spaniard took.
My eyes followed his arm and stopped at a beacon halfway up the hillside.
That was a long way, pulling a heavy chest.
"Not up the hill, maybe, but somewhere along the base."
"And don't you think every man and his dog would have made the same assumption, and covered the ground already." The treasure hunt was beginning to bore me.
His expression changed, the sort that told me he might not have considered that possibility. Boggs was like that, always thinking he had the original idea.
"Perhaps, then, a drink and more thought on the matter."
We trudged through the soft sand to the bar just off the sand, a small place called The Spaniard. A sign on the window said 'Treasure Maps for sale'.
Well, the bar was air-conditioned, and the beer was cold. I have one myself and see where this cinematic experience goes
