Ahoy faithful LiveBloggers! It’s been an awesome week, just awesome, which is why I haven't had a chance to post until today.
I spent it teaching sailing to a couple new to boats. Not just any couple however; Carlos was seriously disabled and has almost no use of his right arm, some issues with his right leg, and balance issues. You can imagine the challenges that poses to learning to sail a 35 foot cruising boat. His wife, Patricia, is just adorable, and incredibly supportive of Carlos. They are an amazing couple who will one day be a real asset to the boating world.
After the accident that disabled (and nearly killed) Carlos, he decided it was time to empty out the bucket list just a bit. That meant buying a boat and learning to sail.
Enter yours truly. I met Carlos at the survey where we discussed what he needed, and it wasn’t your usual Cruising 101 course, I can tell you.
Imagine being nearly unable to use your shift levers because you have no arm strength and the lever is on the wrong side of the pedestal. Or being unable to climb the swim ladder, to name just two of the challenges we faced together, and conquered.
Because of his disability, we did an actual man overboard with Carlos in the water - and discovered some very valuable information about how not to do it, and what we needed to do differently.
I’ll be pitching this story to my editors at SAIL, so I won’t go any further here with it for now - but be watching for it, if you enjoy reading about the will to succeed overcoming the obstacles in the way.
And...I SOLD THE BOAT! No, not Gypsy Wind, but the Catalina 27 that I picked up, Little Soul. You can read about the boat in my last blog post, HERE.
Little Soul is a lovely boat. I seriously considered bringing her home to Canada to use as my summer boat, avoiding the long 1400 mile trip between the Chesapeake and Georgian Bay. However, having done the two boat thing in the past, I decided that wasn’t how I wanted to go about bankrupting myself. The costs of one boat are more than enough, as we all know! Wine, impish women and karaoke are the way to go broke.
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| Photo by Mark Doyle, On the Water Chartguides |
Naturally, there had to be some kind of hitch to the deal. Turns out it was a strange one indeed.
I had hired a friend to clean up the Catalina before I showed her. He told me that he had discovered drug paraphernalia - crack pipes and other things - on board. He’d disposed of them, but my concern now was - what if he’d missed something? Were I to be stopped, and ‘something’ was found by the Coast Guard or police, I’d be doing a ‘Lucy’....you got some ‘splainin’ to do! That’s never good.
So I called the local marine police, told them my problem, and asked if they would search the boat as a courtesy. No problem I was told, so off I went with the constable to see if Little Soul was dirty or not.
Turns out, Dave did a fine job of cleaning up, but I suspect that when I told the officer how much I bought the boat for, he considered putting the cuffs on me! Curiously enough, he had followed the story on one of the Facebook sites I post on, as he and his wife are looking to buy a Lagoon cat and head out cruising themselves.
I hope he manages it soon, I’d enjoy having a brew with him downisland and hearing some stories, I suspect he has some interesting ones to tell. Most cops do.
Does anyone reading this want to be in the movies? No, no...not THAT sort of movie....that’s RUDE!
I’ve received two recent inquiries from producers doing shows on boating. They’re looking for individuals who sail and live on board.
The first one is interested in liveaboard sailors who are doing the hard core thing. Here’s his inquiry:
I am working for a large cable network and developing a show called, Life off the Hook - which would follow sea-steaders and boatmen alike who live self sufficient lives at sea for extended periods of time. Now we just need to find our larger than life characters who live life off the hook! Think Life Below or Zero or Mountain Men but on a boat.
So if catching rain water and filtering it, fishing and growing vegetables on your boat, using composting toilets is your thing - I would love to speak with you and hear more! IF this isn’t you, but you know who would be perfect - please send them to me as well. Thanks and look forward to hearing from you.
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Bryan Severance
Executive Producer
“Down East Dickering”
History Channel
The second inquiry is:
Award winning production company now casting individuals and crews who live on the water. We want to capture the unique day to day lifestyle of the nautical community as they explore the waterways of the americas and leave their life on land behind. Please send your name, contact info, a picture and a little about yourself to misslaurenmac@gmail.com.
So, if either of these inquiries describes you, contact the producers and be sure you let them know where you found them. If they hire you, let me know and we’ll post the news here, on LiveBloggin’.
I get dibs on autographs, ok?
