A new year stretches out in front of us. Like most, I've made my New Year's resolutions. Anne and I are actively looking for a boat to own and sail, adventures we can call our own. We have our eye on one right now. Perhaps it will become our new floating advanture, perhaps not. But as I said in some other pages, it's the striving, the honest best attempt at the goal that is so worthwhile, perhaps more than the actual achievement.
In preparation, I've started a diesel mechanic class. Don't get the wrong idea. I'm never going to be the guy to whom everyone comes to with questions about their diesel engine. My goal isn't to become the Wiseman of the Wharf. It is, however, to become someone who can maintain his own boat, who can diagnose and solve problems of it whilst under sail. After that will come another class and another and another.
Once we get a boat, Anne will be in class too. She'll be getting at least her PCOC (Pleasure Craft Operator's Certificate - a base certification for boating) and her Marine Radio w/ DSC license (so that she can legally talk on the radio in Canada). Of course, being out on the boat will be an education for us both - we'll be learning what the boat will teach us.
We even have a name for our boat, should we get it. Changing the name of a boat is something that Mariners have a lot of superstition, traditions, and rituals about. However there is a way to do it and we intend to honour the lore of the sea and follow it. We had, almost like having a baby, batted ideas around. Our first car together was a sports car and our license plate was "XGRONUP". Anne suggesed we call the boat "Ex Grownup" but that didn't seem like a good ship name to me. We tried names from Celtic mythology simply because we both love much of the Celtic culture, but none of those seemed right.
We're both Harry Potter fans, Anne more so than I, but I read all the books and thoroughly enjoyed them too. Anne suggested we use the name of the house which we would have been sorted into (we took one of those on-line sorting hat tests) and came up with the boat name of Ravenclaw. The dinghy with it's small outboard engine, will be "Hufflepuff".
The search is complicated by this COVID lockdown. Many of the boats that hold our interest are just over the border in the United States, but we can't go to see them. We've thus engaged an agent to do some of that looking for us. However, it does limit us to boats that are either in Canada, or that I have experience with (or at least experience with their make and model).
Current time line is on or about the 9th of January, our agent is going to go look at a boat for us and if that goes well, we'll be putting in an offer on it. We're keeping our fingers crossed!
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