£0:(
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How did I find it? Hmmmmm, difficult to say because of the conditions: suffering from truly bad food poisoning (the show must go on), icy cold winds, miserable cold, total lack of any skill, and the whole book stopping with me.
I had to sail our boat, or should I say have as I am not there yet, from the nearest slip way to our mooring, about 30 miles distant, on a canal. The team was myself and my female friend, a friend of many years, my best friend, my only friend I suppose, but boy she is worth ten, and in being itself so good it naturally over time is isolatory, not that one notices. But that was the crew, me and her, neither of us ever sailed anything.
I was glad to get the boat on the water after re-fitting her (she’s a 22ft fibreglass cabin cruiser), early 70s, a neat and good-looking boat. I’m, we’re, a seasoned caravanning pair, so I knew what we needed in the cabin and have made most of the space using uncommon common sense learnt from caravanning experience. But I digress.
I was glad to get the boat on the water so that I could get her to her mooring where she could sit inexpensively; until such a point I was at the mercy or, in the main, tyranny, of anyone I needed along the way. I learnt that the best way was to pay and pay well, but use this to keep it all as short a time as possible so that you ensure you ‘get through’, but also for the average budget. Thankfully we had funds to keep up a momentum all through it so that it didn’t stall and then the vultures would have had us. So we have done it, just need to sail it to its mooring, and today was the first day we had ever tried to sail.
So, ok the conditions were bad, but we knew that. This was just a practical mission to get the boat to its mooring. Pleasure was not expected. Nonetheless, I could not ignore what my gut reaction to boating was………don’t think it is for me, alas. And my heart is unmoved. My true love is caravanning, motor homing; for me this much more appeals to my free spirit need. Boating is novel. I am alive, I will die, I just hope to live a full life, and this would not be possible without a chapter on boating, but that is all it will be: a chapter, a box ticked off. Best is caravanning/motor homing.
Why? Good question. 1. It’s too slow (life is too short); 2. It’s too restrictive in terms of people (I mean that, well let me give you an instant, today we was approaching a swing bridge and another boat was approaching the opposite way to us. But they put up a good show of going slow so that we would get there first, open the bridge and they would arrive at the bridge so that I’d have it open for them to sail straight through with me having to close it. And as they did so they all said in an ‘innocent’ way nice as pie, ‘Thank you’, so insincerely sincere and sweet, and I was left in their wake of the wives laughing and mocking those insincere 'fooled you' thank yous with smug laughter). I’d actually have been ok about it if they had said ‘sorry about that, our turn next time’. But that is one of the problems, people, you are too stuck with them. In summer it will be like standing in a constant queue, watching for queue jumpers. What a nightmare. No, it’s caravanning for me, I know in my heart. So about 5 years of this before we give it up, till the novelty has worn off and the necessary chapter is written, done and dusted.
But this does not mean to say it has no value, on the contrary, for this is existential living, existing it, doing it, living it, being it, in order to have a fulfilled existence (thank you Satre, etc, for setting this freedom up for us how we can live today, the libertre to live).
I had to sail our boat, or should I say have as I am not there yet, from the nearest slip way to our mooring, about 30 miles distant, on a canal. The team was myself and my female friend, a friend of many years, my best friend, my only friend I suppose, but boy she is worth ten, and in being itself so good it naturally over time is isolatory, not that one notices. But that was the crew, me and her, neither of us ever sailed anything.
I was glad to get the boat on the water after re-fitting her (she’s a 22ft fibreglass cabin cruiser), early 70s, a neat and good-looking boat. I’m, we’re, a seasoned caravanning pair, so I knew what we needed in the cabin and have made most of the space using uncommon common sense learnt from caravanning experience. But I digress.
I was glad to get the boat on the water so that I could get her to her mooring where she could sit inexpensively; until such a point I was at the mercy or, in the main, tyranny, of anyone I needed along the way. I learnt that the best way was to pay and pay well, but use this to keep it all as short a time as possible so that you ensure you ‘get through’, but also for the average budget. Thankfully we had funds to keep up a momentum all through it so that it didn’t stall and then the vultures would have had us. So we have done it, just need to sail it to its mooring, and today was the first day we had ever tried to sail.
So, ok the conditions were bad, but we knew that. This was just a practical mission to get the boat to its mooring. Pleasure was not expected. Nonetheless, I could not ignore what my gut reaction to boating was………don’t think it is for me, alas. And my heart is unmoved. My true love is caravanning, motor homing; for me this much more appeals to my free spirit need. Boating is novel. I am alive, I will die, I just hope to live a full life, and this would not be possible without a chapter on boating, but that is all it will be: a chapter, a box ticked off. Best is caravanning/motor homing.
Why? Good question. 1. It’s too slow (life is too short); 2. It’s too restrictive in terms of people (I mean that, well let me give you an instant, today we was approaching a swing bridge and another boat was approaching the opposite way to us. But they put up a good show of going slow so that we would get there first, open the bridge and they would arrive at the bridge so that I’d have it open for them to sail straight through with me having to close it. And as they did so they all said in an ‘innocent’ way nice as pie, ‘Thank you’, so insincerely sincere and sweet, and I was left in their wake of the wives laughing and mocking those insincere 'fooled you' thank yous with smug laughter). I’d actually have been ok about it if they had said ‘sorry about that, our turn next time’. But that is one of the problems, people, you are too stuck with them. In summer it will be like standing in a constant queue, watching for queue jumpers. What a nightmare. No, it’s caravanning for me, I know in my heart. So about 5 years of this before we give it up, till the novelty has worn off and the necessary chapter is written, done and dusted.
But this does not mean to say it has no value, on the contrary, for this is existential living, existing it, doing it, living it, being it, in order to have a fulfilled existence (thank you Satre, etc, for setting this freedom up for us how we can live today, the libertre to live).
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