Well, the shit is tickling the fan… Last week, another gal joined the Guatemalan aboard the broker’s boat; she’s an experienced ticketed sailor, who came over from the UK to explore the working angle. i was pleased to know that the two of them would be able to look out for each other, and help keep the broker at bay.
Well, the Guatemalan called me up from the boat yesterday, and i got out in a go-fast to pick her up. Looks to me like she’ll be going back only long enough to rescue her seabag and fellow crewmate. In the meantime, i’ve put her up.
i wish i could have been able to tell a better story, but now it looks like all the re-assurances the broker made (not wanting a lover, providing decent crew work, allowing them their own space/time) was pretty much just a line of crap. A couple days into an extended weekend of sailing and the lewd suggestions and possesive behaviors started appearing, along with an increasing obviousness that the only work aboard the boat he had planned for them was topless sunbathing for his entertainment (which, of course, never happened).
Does anyone out there have a positive story to tell re: answering/posting a crew ad online? Anyone? i’ve posted “sailor-seeing-boat” ads myself, but never gotten any replies that particularly inspired me. Of course, i’m a guy… Nowadays, i’m skilled and connected enough to not have to advertise. Generally speaking, the best hook-ups are on the dock, in the dockside bar, or on the racecourse, in person. Still, for the landlocked, the newbies, and the otherwise non-connected online ads have a certain appeal. Still, beware!
November 15, 2005
the broker goes for broke
November 7, 2005
berth wanted, no lovers please.
Went sailing and exploring this weekend with my friend the Guatemalan. She’s been here for about 10 days now, just settling in. The situation is a little weird: she advertised herself as available to crew on a few crew-placement sites, and had plenty of replies. She picked out the best-sounding respondant, and after a few weeks of emailing, showed up here to join on as cruising crew.
Coincidentaly, the fellow whose boat she joined is a local yacht broker whom i happen to have some contact with here around the boatyard. So, as it turns out, it’s more a case of “living on a boat at a mooring” than “cruising around the Caribbean”. The Guatemalan was looking for a bit more adventure; now she’s stuck on this boat with the both the broker’s misguided ardour as well as his teenage son.
This past weekend, we all went sailing. Normally, i wouldn’t have had much interest in sailing with the broker, but the Guatemalan was insistant; as much to enjoy my own company as to help keep the broker at bay. The sailing was okay, and i finally got to explore The Baths and Estatia Sound over on Virgin Gorda, but for most of the time she and i felt that we would rather have had better company than the socially-graceless father and son (and coming from me, “socially-graceless” is fairly damning).
The whole situation is an interesting one, that i will have to follow closely. Of course, i’ve offered the Guatemalan sanctuary if things get too weird on the boat. The broker doesn’t seem like a jerk, but still, he ought to have noticed by know how uncomfortable he makes her feel with his calling her “my princess” or “baby”, and finding excuses to touch her; it’s like he’s trying to come off as a casual, humourous, affectionate, and friendly fellow, but ending up being just plain slimy. It’s not really his intentions i doubt, just his manner.
If you go to any of the crewing websites out there, such as 7Knots or Floatplan, you end up seeing that the great majority of the “crew-wanted” ads read like singles ads; “…50-ish male skipper seeks adventuresome 20’s-30’s female first mate for extended cruising…”. Frankly, i think it’s pretty pathetic. Naturally, energetic, charismatic, beautiful young women like the Guatemalan have no problem finding hordes of guys who want to get her alone out on a boat, especially as she has a modicum of experience and doesn’t get seasick. She’s smart, assertive, and has her pepper-spray, but i’m still left wondering if she’ll be able to find a berth where she can really relax and enjoy herself. Right in her berth-wanted ad she abrubptly states “I’m not looking for a lover.”… Isn’t it ridiculous that she should even have to say so?
October 20, 2005
“happy where you are”, or “the joy of here and now”, or “stop whining”.
i’m sick of the fence mentality. if it seems greener on the other side, it’s likely because you’ve stomped it into a muddy morass on this side.
It bums me out when i hear from folks: “Oh, it’s so great here, and i’m doing so well, and a few things are off, but they’ll only get better…”, then awhile later it’s, “Yeah, this scene is totally played out, i gotta get outta here, maybe back to where i was before…”. Stop it! i don’t even want to hear how happy you are if you’re just going to feel shitty about it a few months down the road.
Truth: No matter where you go, there you are. Scenery changes nothing. Other people can inspire, but they change nothing. You can’t have it both ways, but you can have it every way; expecting anything better than what you have is denying the greatness of the simple things. The air is good. The water is clean. Feel immense gratitude that you’re not one of 70,000+ rotting corpses in Pakistan. Feel immense gratitude that you didn’t just lose it all in a hurricane.
Hey you, the rest of the first-world elite: look in the mirror and just try to slap the hypocracy off your own face. You, the person who advocates “Kill Your TV!”, yet bemoans the cancellation of a favourite show. You, the person who’s “always broke”, but lives in Western Europe, or North America. And you, the person with the freedom to go anywhere, do anything, and yet always feels bored by it all.
i won the lottery the day i was born. Does that mean i should stop trying? Hell no. Should i complain when i hit those stumbling blocks? Hell no.
My friend Mose Malone here is 77 years old. He can barely walk these days. In his 40’s, he was totally paralyzed from the neck down in a workplace accident. He lived in a hospital bed for 4 years. 20 years of physical therapy later, and here he is, driving out to West end to visit, hobbling over from the car to sit with us under tha palms. When he asks me, “Bruthah! ‘ow you bin doin’ dis beautiful day?”, well fuck, i can’t much complain, can i? Actually, if i had anything to complain about, it’s gone, right then and there.
i guess those people are my heroes; the ones who remain positive and joyful in the face of adversity, and the people who got out there and ‘did it’, without first knowing how it would work out. And the people who avoided all the fences, and found the boundless fields…
October 14, 2005
elitism among the corpses
Heard some interesting Cooper Anderson comments, about the bodies in New Orleans. He talked about having been in war-torn foreign countries, especially Rwanda, and having seen the bodies of the dead out in the open, left to decay and disappear along roadways and other public places. He went on to say that he never ever expected to see such things in the US. Why is it that the typical first-world citizen is so shocked to discover that they’re subject to death and decay just the same as the rest of the (impoverished) world?
The implicit attitude seems not one of just “Our standard of living and wealth ought to keep us free of such things”, but more one of “That stuff simply doesn’t happen here”. It’s utterly elitist to assume that just because you live in the first world, you’re immune to death, and failing that, that your corpse will be immediatly cleaned up and “properly” disposed of. i find it weird that people are impacted less by death itself than by where it occurs.
Get over it, people! Death happens to all of us, high or low. Everything dies, decays, and dissolves into nothingness as part of the most obvious lifecycle. Not many folks i know of are still into mummification; no matter how much you respect the dead, and no matter what your spirutal beliefs or views regarding an afterlife, there’s no denying that bodies are just fertilizer in the end, and we’ll all go that way eventually.
Death and decay isn’t something that just happens to the impoverished or unfortunate. As my good friend Mose Malone (a great BVI elder) waxed one day, discussing racism with me; “You cut off you arm, and I cut off mine. We put out on de fence, and soon come they both stink just de same.”
