Poppa Neutrino is Underway

From the Mexican province of Baja California, David Pearlman, known as Poppa Neutrino, with his raftmate Joel, left Rancho Percebu on his raft, Island Rooster. On 26 February 2006, the raft headed south out of the Sea of Cortez, and into the Pacific. With weather perfect, and naturally warm, the sea was calm, and windless, so Island Rooster could not sail, but had to use its motor. Many people showed up to see him off. He waved to a crowd of well-wishers as he left shore with the noon tide.

Poppa Neutrino's raft is made of scrap wood. He plans to sail Island Rooster to China. His plans include a stop at Loreto in Baja California, on his way to Cabo San Lucas, at the foot of the Baja peninsula. In Cabo San Lucas he will make final preparation for the voyage to China as beyond Cabo lies the immense and unfriendly Pacific Ocean.

Neutrino has been written about in New Yorker magazine and National Geographic has done a special on him. Ebay has a page wherein a company is working to get sponsors for his trip.

A friend, Arie Taal, had this to say about him, "It was great to see the old sea gipsy again, 72 years old now and still crazy." Of his trip to visit Neutrino Taal wrote, "The Sea of Cortez is blue and beautiful. The landscape is desert-like. This place has the largest variety of cacti in the world. What surprised us was the huge number of cars that went off the road down into the ravine. They seem to leave them there as a warning for other drivers. Our bus driver did not seem impressed. He drove so dangerously, overtaking other cars in corners with no view at all, that we decided to stop watching him, and look the other way." More

For other Mind Shadow links to Poppa Neutrino, see below.

8/4/05
Poppa Neutrino: 72 Year Old To Cross The Pacific On A Raft of Scraps

9/15/06
Poppa Neutrino Update & Chronology of Events

2/5/09
Poppa Neutrino: The Happiest Man In The World?

4/6/06
Poppa Neutrino is Underway


5/19/11
Poppa Neutrino Is Dead

Poppa Neutrino: 72 Year Old To Cross The Pacific On A Raft of Scraps

Junk-Made Raft The Neutrino Family
Crossed Atlantic on

Poppa Neutrino was born in 1933 as David Pearlman in San Francisco. Twenty one years ago a dog bit his hand in Mexico, causing a two-year sickness so bad he thought he would die. Doctors were unable to diagnose his affliction. Finally recovered, he had changed, feeling so different that he decided on a new name. Poppa Neutrino is the first that came to him.

He explains a neutrino this way:

According to science, neutrinos are subatomic particles that exist throughout the universe, are in constant motion, invisible but ever-present, and act as a sort of balancing factor to all visible matter. When we first read about neutrinos, no one had ever seen one, yet scientists were certain that they must exist. The human soul or spirit is also something that most people claim never to have seen, and so think does not exist. But if neutrinos exist and can't be seen, there must also be many other things that exist and can't be seen.

Like himself, a neutrino is intinerant, its movement random, its course subject to its relationship within the system. In his seventy two years, Poppa Neutrino has not lived in one place over a year. With his "Floating Neutrinos," wife, children, and others, he set a trans-Atlantic record in a raft made of scraps. It was the first of its kind to make the voyage in the late 1990s.

Poppa Neutrino in Baja California,
Mexico. Raft to Cross
Pacific

With his dog, he now plans to cross the Pacific, also in a raft made of scraps. He recently left San Felipe, Baja California, bound for Peru, where he will attempt the voyage, done in 1948 by Thor Heyerdahl in a balsa wood raft.

His life is guided by a world-view he explains as Triads Of Them, he has this to say:

The basic premise of this plan is that from the time you are born, you are being constantly programmed by outside forces - your parents, teachers, friends and relatives, and the society and culture you live in, through the media and the demands of school, work and laws. Most of these outside forces are acting on you in a mechanical way, giving pretty much the same programming to everybody. The programs of society, for example, are designed for the preservation of the society itself, not for individual self-fulfillment. 

Mind Shadow posts on Poppa Neutrino:  Poppa Neutrino Update & Chronology of Events, 15 September 2006; Poppa Neutrino: The Happiest Man In The World? 5 February 2009; Poppa Neutrino is Underway, 6 April 2006; Poppa Neutrino Is Dead, 19 May 2011.