THE LIFE AQUATIC O
uR dream of unshackling ourselves from the workdesk chains and sailing
off to the sunshine for a simpler life and new adventures began eight years ago. We were just married, I had
recently started a new job and a year earlier we had excitedly bought our first property – a flat in Dartmouth. We had no regrets about getting hitched but soon felt trapped by the monotonous nine-to-five routine of work, earning just enough money to pay the mortgage and bills with little left over for anything else. Was this it, our lives mapped out
for the next 30 years until we could afford to retire? The prospect was more than terrifying and I knew I didn’t want to do it. Of course I couldn’t sit down
rationally with Carl and explain how I felt before finding a way forward for us both, like a mature adult would. No, I had to go down the circuitous argument route that resulted in us, having driven together to our jobs in Torquay, phoning in sick, turning the car round and heading home for a more reasonable dialogue about our future.
With his management skills and solution-based approach to life Carl had the brainwave of individually
writing down and comparing our top 10, attainable, aims in life. Amazingly, number one for both of us was to live on a boat. We had never talked about living on a boat before, although we had recently met long-term boat dweller Guy Savage over morning coffees at Alfs. Our route to freedom came without warning and we seized the lifeline it offered, putting the flat on the market that very day, grinning like Cheshire cats relieved to have discovered our exit from the rat-race. It was a big risk but we have never
looked back. We enjoyed six years living on the beautiful River Dart on-board our first boat – a beamy 36-foot long motor sailer called Karanette – before moving on to our current smaller, prettier, classic sailing yacht Leonie. Learning to adapt to living on a boat has been a steep learning curve – helming a 16-tonne wooden hulk of a boat is nothing like driving a responsive car as I discovered not long after we had bought Karanette. We decided the best place to soak up the thrills and spills of Dartmouth’s annual regatta was the mid-river anchorage. We picked our spot on a bright
clear day but woke to find another yacht dangerously close to us the
GINNY WARe, WHO HAs WRITTeN MANY ARTICLes FOR BY THe DART, Is sOON TO
seT sAIL TO FRANCe AND BeYOND WITH HeR HusBAND CARL. THe COuPLe HAVe ACTuALLY BeeN LIVING ABOARD THeIR BOAT FOR eIGHT YeARs ON THe RIVeR DART. GINNY eXPLAINs HOW THIs CAMe ABOuT.
next morning. The single-handed sailor insisted
we had dragged our anchor and refused to move so rather than engage in a pointless stand-off we agreed to reposition Karanette. Unfortunately by this time the wind had picked up drastically, it was pouring with rain, visibility was poor and the anchorage was suddenly full of visiting vessels. With Carl busy hauling up the anchor chain I had no choice but to take the helm. It was the first time I had been in charge of steering Karanette but I had no time to panic as Carl was already in full swing at the bow. Karanette was a pig to drive - un-
like a car she didn’t instantly move in the direction you had steered, but an age later. Trying to judge correctly, in strong winds, the angle at which she would turn and when in order to avoid wreaking havoc by pinballing off all the other boats in the anchorage took all my powers of concentration. Somehow I successfully managed
to weave our way out of the busy anchorage and into a clearer spot further downriver. The relief manifested itself on the loo. Later that day while ashore we
received a phone call from the harbour office warning us we were
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