I arrived back from Zurich 8 months after moving abroad with a company I was working for at the time. Zurich didn't quite do it for me, there's quiet then there's quiet, so I decided to head back to what I knew.
So I'm back in London, spending time at my girlfriends place and my parents. I had a friend of a friend living on a boat in London and decided it was high time me and Ben should go and see her, kestrals packed we went down to the marina and had a great night of beers/bbq and blowdart practice (dont ask)
Tired of living at my parents and not wanting to house share I thought it would be pretty cool to live on a boat. Things seem so simple sometimes to me, I like to think I think in a logical manner which perhaps only makes sense to me. The only thing that holds you back is your own fear. Logically thinking I thought; I like learning new things, I like being outdoors, I've spent a week in Austria in my campervan covered in snow in minus temperatures....heck lets go have a look at a few boats.
So a few weeks later, with permission from the girlfriend, I invited my only boaty friend to come up with me on the back of my motorbike to Ipswich, just to have a look at a few boats. Steph was more than happy to oblige, though 'sailing' through a roundabout thinking we had a green light when infact there were no lights was not my high point, and the trip could easily have stopped there.
Well its true to say I didn't do any research, I couldn't tell the difference between a fin keel or a long keel. The first boat yard was full of wrecks, boats that hadn't seen salt water for about 10 years, with interiors that appeared to have been abandoned in haste. Steph convinced me that that the best boat of a bad bunch was really really bad, so I put my money away..with much annoyance.
The last place we visited was Burton Waters in Ipswich, I had still not bought a boat and felt pretty downtrodden. Like my dad, when I get an idea into my head I can get pretty impatient. Things though suddenly improved when on the hard standing we saw a brown racing boat called Moonpenny. Moonpenny had been standing for 10 years while the owner refitted it, spending copious amounts of money on things that I had no appreciation for at the time. Still it made no real difference, we climbed up and sat down in the boat, I could instantly envision living on Moonpenny, so for me it was a done deal. I took down all the details, we got back on the motorbike and as we sped off I shouted to Steph "I'm going to buy that boat" Steph laughed "YOU'RE CRAZY!!"
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