Remember when I raved about how wonderfully simple life in the Mediterranean was? There is a catch... Their economy is TANKING!

Now I have a theory about the state of their economy; leave it to an over worked American to say something like this buuuuttt.....there doesn't really seem to be much work going on around here. I'd have to say that there is a distinct lack of a 'work ethic'.

People (i.e. workers getting paid to perform a service) move at a snails pace. When we pull alongside a dock and are ready to hook up the hoses sometimes it is impossible to find the hose handlers - oh wait, is that them sitting in the shade watching us work?! I do believe so....

We've recently been completing our annual surveys - which require a lot of outside contractors and vendors - for example we need to have our immersion suits fit tested (someday I'll post a photo of me in an immersion suit....it'll be good for a few laughs). This requires about 50 suits to go to a shore based facility for inspection - we are going to be charged 50 euro per suit, 200 euro to issue a certificate for 34 suits, and 200 euro to transport 15 suits - that's about 5,000 U.S. dollars - and the sad part is, we know that they might not even make it out of the van into the facility to actually get inspected - because that would require work!

We have been having trouble with our Electronic Charting System and require a tech rep - apparently everyone in the office is on vacation. Everyone?! I really can't imagine that the business is thriving - can you imagine a North American company allowing all their employees to go on vacation at the same time?! If times were tough it's possible that someone would be made available on Christmas if work came up!

It just seems like the old adage 'when the times get tough - the tough get going' doesn't really apply in this neck of the woods....

Is it possible that the 'simple life' is catching up with them?

Although they might not be the hardest workers they do have mad cool hydrofoils to shuttle them between islands!