I had an appointment to meet Steve Rickman in his office at the university at 8:00am. It wasn’t far along the coast, so I planned to walk along the shoreline to our rendezvous. I hadn’t considered that this would be impossible at high tide.

I asked the guest house host about public transport to the campus. She reminded me that I was in the US and no such services existed. However, she said that she would gladly offer me a ‘ride’ in exchange for my labour, helping with housework.

All I needed now was Steve Rickman’s phone number so that I could ring and tell him the new arrangement.