Christian Nally's News

I love it when a plan comes together.

This Canada Day weekend I saw quite a confluence of circumstances. I rented my cottage (and only permanent residence) out to a vacationing couple. I'm hoping to provide them with a nice place for their own adventures. I've done basically what I can, and now it's all up to them.

In the meantime I'm far enough along with my own boating adventure to be able to stay aboard. Today's big upgrade was to simply dust off the BBQ and reposition it. Evidently it's the simpler things that can help the most.

Have you sailed? I had forgotten how much fun sailing actually is!

Sure, I had had a tremendous amount of fun sailing as a kid, and had gone a few times in the last 5 or so years. I've always enjoyed it.

Bored? Lost? Looking for a challenge? Get out sailing !

With all the rationale and excuses behind getting this boat (second set of summertime accomodations, cheaper than a condo, 26 times 2 feet of accessible waterfront, more mobile than a trailer-home) I'd forgotten how much fun sailing actually is in and of itself!

Certainly you'd best get used to not having perfect conditions. Let's say you're happiest at 15 knots of wind. It's pretty much a certainty that you're either going to have less or more than that. Let's just say that it's a chance to practice the lost art of planning around the weather... it's an art lost to those who live in the concrete jungle. Complete years have gone by where the only weather related question I've asked myself was 'Should I wear the heavier coat today?' This past week, the finer points of weather prediction became pretty important.

With help and influences from many people, economic factors beyond my control, and a little determination I've managed to land a boat.

I would love to draw a graph (the nodes and connections type, not the x-y type) of all of the decisions, events, and factors that contributed to my getting this particular boat in this particular manner. Here's the summary:

I had two desires that fed into the purchase... a) having a place to crash when my cottage is rented during the summer months b) having a place to crash in Vancouver if and/or when I might need to work more closely with clients there for an extended period. The pure joy of sailing kind of tips the 'life artistry decision making scales' after those two reasons were taken into account.

Working out of the standard office environment may work quite well in conjunction with bringing an 'office' from town to town. We shall see.

I found a 'distress boat' while on a kayak trip out of Montague, tracked down the owner and offered to buy it. At first they seemed keen but then went a little cold. In the meantime I was keeping my eyes open. Then I spotted another one (this one actually for sale) while out one night with the volunteer firefighters learning how to fight a dock fire. After a few weeks of getting psyched about that possibility, the boat was sold an hour before my scheduled viewing for $500 more than I had.

Fast forward past a bunch of other assessments, throw in craigslist plus a tip from a friend that the market in the U.S. just south of the border was tipped a little more in favour of the buyer, and I found myself on a ferry to Port Angeles, WA from Victoria, BC. And I didn't buy a return ticket.

The boat itself was a little further out of my league price-wise than I had been focusing on, but the value seemed so good that it made making the stretch to make it work very attractive.

The next step? Get it and me home... in one piece. I mean two pieces. Me and the boat.