Dana at Dock AKA My training begins – a posting with too many superlatives.
 |
| This is a photo of Dana at sea... we are still at dock, so her sails are not up, but she is just as beautiful! |
If I were just a wee bit more superstitious I wouldn’t put this post up
but, but, but… I really am here, living on this boat, and I am so very much in awe that
I just have to. If I mess things up, if I get kicked off after my training
week, well, I do. You can read about it later.
Wow!
Wednesday I met with Sven and was accepted as crew onboard his
amazing boat, Dana.
Wow! Just wow!
Talk about being in the right place at the right time. This boat is
beyond fantastic and Sven could have his pick of any crew at all in the world.
I just happened to be in Puerto Montt, of all places, when he was passing
through and managed to ask to chat with him with exactly the right mix of
assertiveness and humility. I am honoured, and awed, and grateful, and
disbelieving, that I have the fortune to be here.
As soon as I was given the opportunity, lickety-split, faster than
light, moving on air, I moved from the hostel I was staying at to Dana.
I am overwhelmed. I am afraid that I will be out of my depth. I am
worried that I may not rise to the challenge.
I feel terrible about potentially deserting my kids, going off, out of
e-mail range even, for weeks at a time, but, at the same time, I am determined
to do my very very best to pass my training week here and succeed in being
taken on as semi-permanent crew. It is, undoubtedly, the chance of a lifetime
for me.
I will be here on the boat for a week, now, on dock, helping out with
odd chores, and then for a month, while Sven goes home, I´ll go south to
do some hiking, and then we will (hopefully, my fingers are crossed so hard
they are almost bleeding) meet back here again in early April and set sail. That
is the plan.
Lisa, the other crew, will, I think, help me out, and Sven is intimidating,
but, I am pretty sure, a great leader. It will all be good. It will all be
fantastic!
‘No boat comes perfect so find a boat and make it perfect.’ This is a
piece of advice given by one of the other captains I had considered crewing
for. I like it. I think I can do that here. I think, if I am careful, I can
make this boat perfect. (For me.) It is an amazing boat; large, clean,
comfortable, open, and very well equipped. It was hand designed by Sven purposefully
for long distance cruising. It is his ‘adventure platform’ and comes will all
the bells and whistles. And the itinerary is a dream for most people (including
me). It comes with another woman on board (which is a plus). The common
language is English (also good). There will be little responsibility yet awesome
sailing. All I have to do is learn to cook, and, I think using the onboard 1000 Classic Recipes and and Fred’s
dictum, ‘If you can read you can cook.’ I ought to be able to manage to do
that. (I was upfront and admitted that I am not a good cook but was accepted
almost instantly anyway.) This boat is spotless, beautiful, comfortable,
well-organized, well-run… The captain has lots of money and spares none of it.
The other crew is very sympathetic. My plan is to start out very permissive, to
be a pleaser, to do whatever I can to make the situation work. This same plan has,
I know, failed me in past, but I don’t see how I can do otherwise. It is both
the nature of the beast - being a guest in someone else’s expensive and amazing
home – and my nature. I just have to make sure that it doesn’t come back to
bite me in the tail. I don’t think, here, however, that that will be a problem.
I think here the captain is strong enough and sane enough, intelligent and
well-balanced enough, that it will work, that he will make it work. He wants,
obviously, his life on this boat to be congenial, and if his crew are happy and
hard-working this makes it a more positive environment for them, and by
extension for him, and, by all appearances, he is the sort of leader who will
successfully troubleshoot problems and come up with effective solutions, not
only on how to fix physical problems on the boat but also on how to deal with
any ‘personnel’ problems. We will see.
I am sitting in the pilot house now, sipping a pre-supper glass of red
wine, listening to classical music on a top notch sound system, while in the galley below the soup
I have made simmers away.
I am overwhelmed but optimistic.
Wow!
And, even if this is the only week I get on Dana, this week at dock, even then I will be happy to have been
here.
