Dawn on the Amazon Captain’s Blog

The original comments are still complete with no changes in the comment section of the article, How the Amazon Golf Club Was Stolen. These exerts are what caught my eye as important, profound, or funny. I was pleased that there was so much content that deserved merit. The original list I saved was twice this long, too long to accomplish my objective. Let’s start over and leave our comments under this condensed summary.

# 3: “Even though it might take some time, Peruvian law and truth should prevail. Based on my experience with the Peruvian courts, they are a first class operation.”

# 13: “The bottom line is this: Gerald, Adam: with all due respect, you have a moral obligation to set up the new constitution of the club as closely (and legally) as possible to the original conditions given to the founding members.”

# 15: “They do not want any non-golfing investors in the Amazon Golf Club. We know it was Mike Collis’s idea, a non-golfer, I was the first investor, a non-golfer, 6 out of the first 10 share holders, non-golfers, 30 out of the first 49 share holders, non-golfers, 37 out of the original 62 share holders, non-golfers, and Peter Schneider, the man that saved the club, without whom the golfers would have no wonderful golf course in the middle of the Amazon jungle, a non-golfer.”

# 20: “In all my investments over my life time I have always found the investors control the investment but are not involved with the product they are investing in. Ballparks are not owned by ballplayers, movie studios are not owned by movie stars, recording studios are not owned by recording artists, oil companies are not owned by oil drillers, taverns are not owned by drunks, restaurants are not owned by obese people, tobacco companies are not owned by smokers, and golf courses are not owned by golfers.”

# 22: “I spent most of my formative years playing on a private golf course in Appalachia and even though many of the members there had married and divorced their sisters, leaving them with their retarded offspring, they still behaved like gentlemen and ladies! And here I am in Peru, dealing with infighting, sub-grouping and slanderous gringos that obviously are offspring of incestuous affairs…There, I was able to write my mind without bastardizing anyone. Can’t we all?”

# 26: “Remember, there are only three games where gentlemanly conduct is a prerequisite: Cricket, Tennis and Golf If you can not maintain yourself, you are not welcome on the course or in the Clubhouse. As we say: It’s just not Cricket!”

# 33: “If these transactions would have happen in the USA people would be going to prison.”

# 35: “Any member that is a resident of Peru, attends the majority of the meetings, and has enough backing from the other members must be allowed to serve on the board of directors.”

# 38: “I vote for every issue by voting for the board of directors and officers. They represent me just like in government. There was no election of officers or board of directors by the share holders in the golf course.”

# 40: “I have read, listened to and examined everything that has come to my attention yet I have not been able to get down to solid facts and I must say that it is my belief that the reason I have not hit solid ground is because there is a layer of muck that has not been washed away. It is also my belief that this layer of muck can only be washed away by Gerald, Ryan and Adam. There should be NOTHING hidden in a layer of muck! The Golf Club is not a secret society.”

# 43: “OK Gerald Mayeaux, I have been waiting for a denial from you that you stole our investment in the golf course. There has yet to be one denial of this by you, Adam, or Ryan. Why? You and Ryan never answer my emails. We can only assume you’re guilty. In the USA you are assumed innocent until proven guilty only if you plead not guilty. God forgive me for associating with this man!”

# 57: “I would like all foreign Founder Members to make a formal complaint to the Peruvian embassies in your country.”

# 63: “I intend to show all of you who are interested how The Amazon Golf Club was stolen by Gerald Mayeaux and his associates. I will be talking about evidence that is in the public domain and is available to anyone in Peru at the Public Register Office.

According to the Public Register an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Amazon Golf Club was held at the Yellow Rose of Texas bar in Iquitos at 8.00 p.m. on the 7th April 2006. According to the public register there were 7 members at that meeting. They were;
Michael Collis
Maria Earls
Dan Buzzo
Delmer de Aguila
Sergio Bargas
Gerald Mayeaux
Ryan Richards.
The Public Records state that the meeting was chaired by me, Michael Collis. The Public Records show that the minutes of this meeting state that I Michael Collis proposed that the Amazon Golf Club be dissolved and that Gerald Mayeaux be appointed as Liquidator of the Club’s assets. The Public Register shows that the proposals were accepted unanimously and all in attendance signed the minutes in acceptance.

THE TRUTH IS THIS; There was no such meeting, I Michael Collis was not there, Maria Earls was not there, Dan Buzzo was not there, Delmer de Aguila was not there and Gerald Mayeaux was with Dan Buzzo in another location celebrating Dan Buzzo’s 85th birthday so he was not there either. THE MEETING NEVER TOOK PLACE.

The Public Register shows that Gerald Mayeaux declared that when the Amazon Golf Club was dissolved it had NO ASSETS whatsoever, not even 50 cents. At that time the club had its clubhouse, machinery, golfing equipment and a bank balance. As Liquidator of the assets of the club Gerald donated the assets that he previously declared not to exist, to the recently formed Amazon Golf and Country Club which is being run by Gerald Mayeaux and his associates.

The law also states that before a club or business like this can be dissolved 3 announcements must be placed in the local newspapers and these announcements should be lodged in the Public Register Office. There are NO such announcements on file. If the Amazon Golf Club was dissolved at a Non Existent Extraordinary General Meeting that did not take place then it was dissolved illegally and Gerald Mayeaux and his associates are controlling the club illegally. The accused have decided to use their right to remain silent.”

# 64: “I have traveled to Iquitos every year for the past 15 years. I am not an investor in the club but I know many of the players. Gerald does have warts but then again I would argue we all do. As a banker I have learned the importance of due diligence and putting rumor and innuendo aside and dealing with the facts.”

# 65: “The apparent central figure in the entire issue certainly appears to be Gerald Mayeaux. He obviously could not pull off this coup d’éta alone, however. For those who seem to feel perhaps no wrong has been done, please explain why the club was dissolved without the knowledge of the majority over a year ago.”

# 66: “All Peruvians with any experience under their belt and the slightest legal knowledge understand that there are two worlds in Peru: the real world and the legal world. Only sometimes do they overlap, about as frequently as a solar eclipse, and like the broken clock that tells the correct time twice a day, the legal corresponds with real. The accountant’s job is to create documentarily the legal reality. And that’s how things are done.”

# 69: “I spent 3 hours with the Fiscal (Public Prosecutor) and he said that he thought a crime had been committed and that they were going to investigate it further. I told the Fiscal that we didn’t want to get people into trouble we only wanted what was wrong put right i.e. the Annulment of the “Dissolution of the Amazon Golf Club” so that we can return to the status quo and work it out between ourselves. He replied “If a crime has been committed against the Public Interest (Contra la Fe Publica) then the accused WILL face trial.”

# 77: “At least one crime has been committed, contempt of court, for failure to turn over the Amazon Golf Club bank account information, minutes of the meeting, and documents pertaining to the dissolution of the Amazon Golf Club. They are guilty of contempt of court. History is clear; it is not the crime, but the cover up.”

# 84: “If Gerald Mayeaux was an honorable man there would not be this suspicion of corruption. Gerald Mayeaux should be banned from the Amazon Golf Club. He is an investor, so he keeps his share, but needs to step completely out of the picture and stay to hell out.”

# 88: “Roberts Rules are very clear. The majority shall rule, the minority shall have the right to speak and those not present shall be protected.”

# 99: “The proposed constitution looks very promising; however it is a long way from being in place so let’s save the celebration until we have it in place and working.”

# 102: “I have built 3 multimillion dollar golf courses in the USA and I don’t believe any of the architects and engineers ever played golf including myself. We of course did hire consultants who had a proven track record in designing golf courses and maybe they did play golf. I don’t know. Most airlines are owned by people that are not pilots and don’t understand how to fly a plane. All I need to do to qualify to vote is buy shares. Don’t sell me shares if I can’t vote.”

# 105: “Leave it up to me and the other investors who we want to be the officers and directors. Trust us to vote for the person who would benefit our investment the best. The ones who are the most qualified. One of my previous businesses was a tavern. I hated drunks but I had more of them than all the other taverns in town put together. We went to great length to get them their favorite whiskey or beer even thou they all tasted the same to me.”

# 139: “As an artist with the verse once said– “coming events cast their shadows before”. Time to reflect…believe me.”

# 144: “I have heard that the police are pressing charges against Ryan and Gerald for trespassing on the golf course . Is it true? If it is true then, “Its game over” for the gang of thieves. Someone please tell me it is true.”

# 145: “It is true. The charges against Ryan, Gerald and others still stand and because the trespass charge against them was with threats of violence; these charges are criminal charges.”

# 147: “My last post was, at best, obliquely related to my ex-friend “The Iquitos Scoundrel”, Gerald Mayeaux. I tried to envision being in a position where I faced each day encountering people I have screwed, people who once foolishly trusted me. What a lonely life. Try to envision facing each day knowing most people look upon you with disdain.”

# 148: “Ok, I’ve read through this site extensively. Therefore let’s organize and make a difference Do we take a vote or what? When do we take charge?”

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An Interview with David Bonnett, Acoustical Engineer Studying Pink Dolphin Communication

Hello Dave, welcome aboard Dawn on the Amazon III. Would you please share with us how you became interested in acoustics and trained as an acoustical engineer?

Thanks Bill, my early acoustical interest came as an officer assigned to nuclear submarines during the Cold War, playing cat and mouse with the Russians for 20 plus years. We monitored every sound they made as well as every sound we made.

What have you been doing since then?

I spent many years after retiring from the Navy in 1979 working on a variety of projects that were usually related to shipborne acoustics. One of those projects was for Shurgar, built by the Agha Kahn. That vessel was 80 meters in length and used a Jet propulsion system, thus the need to quiet things down as much as possible.

The Aga Kahn must be the kindest, most modest man who ever owned an eighty meter mega-yacht. You would really like him. Here he is, the spiritual leader of the Ismailis faith, in charge of billions of dollars of investment money, starting a multi-million dollar micro-loan program in the third world, publishing The Nation, one of the most read newspapers in Africa, and sitting around a table just like we are, chatting about life and how to make the Shurgar run quieter.

How did you get interested in Pink Dolphin communication?

We recorded whale communication in the Artic Circle off the coast of Alaska. You know water temperature affects sound transmission? You know the hydrophone picks up all sounds under and on the water? We presented our findings to the Acoustical Society of America. My partner started our presentation with a recording. He introduced it with these words, “This first sound is Mr. Bonnett urinating off the bow of the trawler…” I didn’t even know he was recording. How embarrassing. Let that be a lesson to you. Anyway, I bought this system from Joe Olson, from Seattle, with the idea to record whale communication near our cabin off Puget Sound, Moon Rise Cove. Then a trip to the Amazon made me realize the Pink Dolphin is the member of the Whale family that has been studied the least, and I decided to collect some data on our next trip, and here we are collecting data from Dawn on the Amazon III.

Do you think the data will be usable by scientists?

I believe if we are lucky, we have an opportunity to record scientifically usable data, if we record in a scientific manner, which we did. The big question is, “Will we be able to detect clues that will differentiate between individuals as we can with whales? I believe we will begin making strides in that direction by taking photographs and videos of our subjects. We will try to lay the groundwork of combining photographic and audio imprints of individual pink dolphins and how they interact with their surroundings, while recording their communication.

Dave, would you please share with us your observations about how we came to be here under these circumstances?

The reason I am on this vessel along with my wife Dorothy and our great friend Shirley Sherman, is several months ago Dottie discovered your website, http://www.dawnontheamazon.com/, by reading an article you wrote for the Iquitos Times on the internet. You mentioned you had built a boat to go on the Amazon purposely designed to be very quiet, with a large bank of deep cell batteries that allowed the use of refrigeration, computers, and other minor electrical loads for a long period of time, without running any motor, or generator. I decided it might be feasible to record underwater sounds in the Amazon area that we would travel to, and, in particular, I discovered there were very few quality recordings of the Amazon River Pink Dolphin. Because it is potentially considered to be a threatened species, there was some immediate importance, I believed, in experimenting on using a vessel like the Dawn on the Amazon III as a platform to do these recordings.

Did we help you accomplish your objectives?

We have over 25 gigabytes of very high quality digital sounds from a variety of locations in and around Pacaya Samiria. The Dawn III worked beautifully. It was an exceptionally quiet vessel.

We were able to record many, many dolphins from the deck, dangling the hydrophone from your fishing pole into the water. I think everyone who heard the noises these animals make were fascinated, including your Peruvian guides and crew, who live with the dolphins but never have had an opportunity to hear their vocalizations in the wild, under the water.

I have five or six DVDs worth of dolphin sounds that will need to be further processed and analyzed. Hopefully this information will be usable to the academics and researchers who are interested in this field of endeavor.

Dave, I am very happy to have been part of this research. If you do not mind me saying so, you are overly obsessive-compulsive about your science.

No, I am not, Bill. I think I am just right.

Well, I think I am just right too, but then, my final question would be, why are Dottie, and Shirley laughing so much?

I hope you will enjoy the photos of our journey to Pacaya Samiria National Reserve on my online Flickr photo gallery at www.flickr.com/photos/dawnontheamazon/. Click the link on the right side of the Flickr page titled, Expedition to Pacaya Samiria National Reserve. There you will find over 20 photos of Pink River Dolphins mixed in with beautiful birds, monkeys, incredible insects, trees, food and our guests. Look around the photos, maybe you will find something else of interest.

An Interview with David Bonnett, Acoustical Engineer Studying Pink Dolphin Communication

Bill Grimes, Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

Related articles about our Amazon cruise to Pacaya Samiria to study Pink Dolphin Communication;

I am just another travel man

Observations About Our Study of Pink River Dolphins in Pacaya Samiria National Reserve

The Pacaya River

Our Adventures Apprehending Paiche Poachers in Pacaya Samiria National Reserve

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I am just another travel man

We were also joined on this dolphin trip to Pacaya Samiria by Eric Angus Sutherland. He was a delightful traveling companion who entertained us with stories of his travels around the world. He is the most traveled individual I have ever met. As an ex-chairman of the Association of British Travel Agents, with 50 years in the travel business, many of those years as upper management of Thomas Cook Travel, and with 83 years of experience, he has led the travel life to the fullest. Here is his story in his own words.

I am just another travel man who loves to see people and places. Everyone has heard of the Amazon, especially travel people, and I had always wanted to come here. My first opportunity came in February 2000, and I absolutely fell in love with the place. I have been coming back every year since then. This year I wanted to come back to a place I first visited in 2001, Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, a place that I consider to be heaven on earth. I wish everyone, particularly people living in an urban setting, could see what we have seen these last 8 days. You really owe it to yourselves to get out of the city, whether it is London or New York or San Francisco, and to travel to the upper Amazon region of Peru. I am 83 years old, and that is the best advice I can share with you.

Of course there are two directions to go from Iquitos, the main port on the Peruvian Amazon. You can go down river to the triple frontier to a stinky little town called Leticia, which is actually in Columbia, where the boat turns around and comes back up again, three days down and three or four days back, or you can go up river which is the trip we are on now, which goes to a part of the country where it’s…well, there is only one word to describe it, magical. This is my third trip to this heaven on earth. This trip that we are now completing is far and away my best ever to this magical land of Pacaya Samiria. Going up river the Amazon changes character, becomes smaller, and changes its name. When we pull off into the Pacaya River fork it is no longer a big, muddy, brown river, but changes to a narrow, clear, black, incredibly beautiful reflective stream, with magnificent trees that grow down to the waters edge, close on both sides of you, and you see their reflection in the water, the mirror of the jungle, right in front of you. It is magical.

I am so grateful to have lived as long as I have and to have traveled the world, but I am also grateful that I have not finished. With a bit of luck, I will not be finished for a while yet, because as long as I can travel I am living.

I lost my beloved Italian wife, Penny, with whom I shared 40 years. I was working with Thomas Cook in Rome when I met her. Then I was transferred to Paris where we had the best 6 years of our life, until I was called back, kicking and screaming, to the Thomas Cook headquarters in London.

Since Penny died of leukemia nearly 13 years ago…I have been traveling for pleasure instead of work. In my time I have traveled nearly everywhere but I have found Latin America is really the lost continent, waiting to be discovered by travelers from all over the world.

I have been fortunate enough to have discovered the delights of scuba diving. I have been several times to the Galapagos Islands, which I think are the ultimate for scuba divers. But those diving days are over since I have a dicky heart.

But I am 83 and I can still travel and enjoy myself, and I came on this trip because I had a chance to meet Bill Grimes, who operates this quite incredible boat in which we have been traveling now back from Pacaya Samiria. I will write a story about our Amazon adventure for the Thomas Cook Newsletter, which is distributed to a bunch of ex-Thomas Cook managers called the 1841 Club, to which I feed stories of my travels, and of course it will include Bill’s gorgeous boat, Dawn on the Amazon III, with the amazing eagle figurehead, as well as the unlikely story of David taking sonar soundings of dolphins…a truth so much stranger than fiction. For me it was my best ever trip to the best part of the Amazon.

I just hope the Lord lets me live a little while longer so that I might come back again, because you can never get enough of this place. It’s not something you can ever walk away from and say, “Well, that is it. I’ve done it, I am finished.” No, your appetite is constantly whetted and you want to see more. I want to come back. So, I hope I can.

As I say to my darling Penny when I have a dry martini at night, I always raise my glass at home, never before 7:00… I raise my glass…”Cheers, darling, I know you are waiting for me, but please not just yet, have patience, allow me to travel to these treasures in the world.”

I am past seeking new treasures, I have found so many. Now I am very happy to bet on certainty, to go back to places I know are beautiful. There are no more beautiful places on earth than Pacaya Samiria on the upper reaches of the Amazon…I recommend it.

I am just another travel man

Bill Grimes,  Pacaya Samiria National Reserve,  Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises 

Links to other posts related to our Amazon cruise to study Pink Dolphin communication in Pacaya Samiria National Reserve;

Observations about our study of Pink River Dolphin Communication in Pacaya Samiria National Reserve

An Interview with David Bonnett, Acoustical Engineer Studying Pink Dolphin Communication

Our Adventure Apprehending Paiche Poachers in Pacaya Samiria National Reserve

The Pacaya River

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