In he early evening a day or two ago I came onto the bridge and had the watch keeper alter course. You can just see in the picture that it was a substantial change of direction but this action in it's self is no big deal. For me personally however, this was a significant point in my life. We changed course for Brazil! My return to Brazil one day was inevitable, it will have taken me 23 years and I will now have to write a bullet point history of my adult life so that you can understand what I am going on about. I like stories like this and it has inspired me that perhaps I should write the story down somewhere in more detail.
In 1989 my friend Mark invited me on an expedition to the Amazon. In 1990, Mark, myself and 3 others left England and landed in Manaus, Brazil. I was 21 years old. As an impressionable young man, the adventure, colour, vibrance and culture of Brazil and the remote beauty of the rain forest soaked into my skin. I loved it. After six months in Brazil I had seen many opportunities to teach English there and I vouched that I would go home, study to teach English and return to Brazil.
On returning to England I had got my job back working with another friend, also called Mark for a nice man called Robert. I studied to teach English as a foreign language and passed with good grades.
Then I met a Canadian girl who said 'why don't you come to Canada with me and then we will go to Brazil together next winter?' I said yes and in the summer of 1992, I packed up my job and my stuff and landed in Toronto. In Toronto I met a nice man called Doug, who gave me a job on his sailing schooner, where I met and worked with a guy called Paul (who ended up being the best man at my wedding) At the end of the summer I said to the Canadian girl, lets go to Brazil and she said, Na! So the guys on the boat said, why don't you drive to Florida and then you will get a boat to Brazil.
I drove from Canada to Florida and when I arrived I told everyone I met that I wanted to go to Brazil. One evening about 2 weeks after arriving, I got a call from a nice lady called Yolanda. She said, "Are you the guy I keep hearing about that wants to go to Brazil?" I said, Yes! This is how I met a nice bloke called Vern who was the husband of Yolnda and the captain of a large sailing boat that we were about to sail to Chile. This is also the journey that I made my first transit of the Panama Canal. It was 1993.
After an epic sailing adventure to the wrong coast of South America I was tired and Vern offered me more work on boats in Florida, Doug offered me my job back on the schooner in Canada and for four years I worked winters in Florida and Summers in Canada. In the last year in Canada I had bought my own sailing boat and lived on it on Toronto Island with the hope of one day sailing it to Brazil. I had also met another Canadian girl. But this was the year that the Canadian Immigration stopped me and my now good friend Paul and decided that we were no longer welcome in Canada and with a large, size ten immigration boot up our butts Paul and I were strongly encouraged to return to the UK.
I set up home in the spare room Paul's small house in Essex and short of work, he got me a job making walking frames for old people, at his families business. Most importantly, that winter he persuaded me that we should take our Yacht Master licence and so we knuckled down and with Paul's encouragement and his kindness of free rent I became a Yacht Master. I had become a sailor and now a qualified one who was making walking frames in Essex and still had a dream of returning to Brazil.
My Canadian girlfriend moved to the UK and we moved together to Brighton where I met a nice man called Andrew, who had just bought the Brighton Marina and offered me a job there. After a year or so at the Marina I met two nice guys called Pip and Pete who offered me a job working for them, looking after the UK sailing for their company, Neilson. By this time I had to sell my boat in Canada for a loss and bought my second boat, a classic wooden sloop which I was able to keep in the Marina on the cheap.
This was the year that a nice guy called Fred who was the husband of one of my mums friends also bought a boat and he invited me and another guy that I had never met to help him sail it from Scotland to Brighton. That is how I met Marco. Marco and I became firm friends quickly. This was also the year I sold my second boat for a big profit and bought my first flat with my second Canadian girlfriend.
One day Marco came to the Neilson office where I was working and he told me that he was going to the sea school to check out some courses that he and I should do. That with our experience we could grandfather into getting our 3000 ton commercial masters licence before the rules change in the year 2001. He was excited and I was unsure. A call from Marco that evening. "Meet me in the pub" I walked to the pub and sat down he had bought me a pint. Right, he said. " we are booked on to the course this winter and you owe me a thousand pounds because I paid your deposit for you!"
I was broke, in a fun but not so well paid job and I had not long ago bought the flat. Doing the courses which would take 3-6 moths would be impossible!
We did the courses, for me at a huge risk of nearly 15000 borrowed pounds My Canadian girl friend and I were helping one another and working hard to follow dreams that would inevitably split us apart, her gaining a job for UNICEF and me working towards my commercial licence. She moved to Africa and not long after that I met an English girl, Claire who in February 2009 became my wife.
It was now 2003 I was at Brighton Marina and a guy called Mike who runs the chandler's was complaining because he never saw his family on the weekend. I said to Mike. why don't I look after the shop tomorrow and you spend the day with your family. It seemed simple to me. That Sunday in Mikes shop I met David, an old school friend. The next week I flew with David to sail a boat with him from Monaco to Cyprus. Then I became captain of that boat for the summer. This was the summer that I was to sit the oral exam for my Commercial license and with a lot of help and patience and encouragement from my girlfriend Claire I managed to pas!
This winter was to be my first trans Atlantic crossing as Bosun with an organisation called the JST on a tall ship called Tenacious. By now my dreams of Brazil had faded and I was a fully qualified and somewhat experienced sailor.
While sat with Marco having coffee in Brighton in 2004, I received a call from a girl called Nikki.
I became Captain for Nikki on her beautiful sailing ship Bessie Ellen because she needed a guy with my ticket and I took my first proper captains job excitedly.
On a summers evening at anchor on Bessie Ellen in Scotland, one of the guests that week was a Canadian lady. After the years that had passed we had not recognised one another from our brief meeting some years before. She had sold her boat to me! The one I lived on in Toronto and loved so much had been hers and she had stood and cried at the dock as I sailed it away that summer in Toronto. Another circle closing. I always take these signs that perhaps I am on the right path.
Another call from Marco a few years later. He had been promoted to chief officer on a large yacht and there was a second officer position going. I joined the yacht without hesitation, excited to work with Marco.Another opportunity came up for him and he left before I even arrived, which meant that I met a guy called Brendan. When Brendan left to take an opportunity as Captain, I stepped up as chief officer and the following year I had a call from Brendan who suggested I apply for a captains position for the guy he was now working for. I applied for the job and got it! I Joined this yacht as Captain 5 years ago on the 6th of May 2008 and on the 4th of May 2013 I changed course for Brazil!
I wonder if I had not wanted to return to Brazil, if any of the above would have happened at all. I have friends that have been along for this whole ride and some that I have met on the way but with the closing of this circle I thank all of my friends for a wonderful adventure. Long may it continue.
Ironically, in a week or so we will arrive in Brazil and as soon as my little feet hit the land they will be running as fast as they can for the airport and a plane to take me home to England. This is because my beautiful wife is due to give birth to our second child and like in the story of the 'Alchemist' my treasure is not in Brazil but at home at the small house with the blue door, behind which me and my growing family are safe and happy.
