A long time ago (no, not in a galaxy far away, I think I was in Boston), I had a conversation over a beer, about working from home. At the time, the Internet had reached a sufficient speed and VPN technology was to a standard that you could work from home and achieve the same productivity as the office. Probably even more productivity than most offices I’ve frequented. I’m sure many people before me had also pondered this question, but it came as a revelation for me. I think it was around the third beer that a cloud lifted. A whole new vista opened up before me. “You don’t actually need to be at home to be Working From Home…” My sage colleague nodded in agreement. As if to say “of course! Everyone knows that.” But to me, life would never be the same, again.

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There are two types of sailors. Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.

Sorry, old joke.

There are actually hundreds of different types of sailors. Even within the racing fraternity, you have your speed demon athletes, like the Volvo Ocean Race nutters or the America’s Cup sailors. Then there’s the club maniacs, the guys who’ll drive their J-109 to within a hairs breadth of the committee boat in order to win (for a year) a 30 year old tin pot and a club tie. Not to mention the ones who politely sit back on the start line, courteously allowing everyone to go on ahead, while they wait for the wine to chill and the wind to ease.

But I’m talking about cruising sailors. Those ladies and gentlemen who like to put miles under their keels. Those people who throw the hook out in secluded anchorages, admiring the sunset from the cockpit with a chilled gin and tonic.

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Boats leak. Above the waterline, and sometimes below. An above-the-waterline leak isn’t a bad thing when the boat’s in the water, in that it won’t sink. But it does mean that stuff gets damp.

I’ve read countless online articles about how to keep a boat dry, and it’s not a trivial exercise. For the most part, with the boat on the hard, I’ve stored everything I possibly could in the warm and dry attic. But the bilge does fill with water, and it’s annoying. We have no shortage of rainwater in the west of Ireland, and it’s collecting in the boat, which makes painting the bilge and re-installing the engine that bit harder.

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On Thursday, November 19th 2009, I flew from Dublin to Las Palmas, to join the Beneteau 40.7 sailing vessel “Beoga” on her voyage across the Atlantic.

Not really a sailing log, but almost a decate later, I can still remember the feeling of “departure day.” I had taken a job in Dublin with the IEDR, starting in late October (the 19th or 20th, if memory serves). I was initially staying in a little B&B around the corner from the old IEDR offices in Sandycove and normally I would drive up on a Sunday evening, park the car out front and walk to the office each day. On Friday evenings I’d return out West when work finished. The week before the 2009 ARC though, was different. I needed my car somewhere convenient for the month or so I’d be away. So, on Sunday, I drove to my sisters house in Ennis, where the rest of my family staged an impromptu “I can’t believe my brother is dumb enough to sail across the Atlantic” party. I left the car at her place, and they dropped me at Ennis train station, waving goodbye. Commuter train to Limerick City, another commuter train to “Limerick Junction”, and finally the Cork to Dublin express train. From Heuston, I made my way to the Dart and arrived at the B&B quite late. The landlady wasn’t at all happy being woken up (at what was probably no later than 10PM).

Anyway, Departure Day!

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(Originally published in Medium)

Many years ago, before I actually found the time to learn how to sail, I had a large, framed picture in my office similar to the one above. It was a twenty-four foot sailboat, at anchor in a deserted cove with a morning mist adding a sense of serenity and peacefulness to the scene. I hung it in my office at work (back in the days when we had offices, and we weren’t piled up on top of each other in an open-plan dystopia). On those days when my work life seemed to be up to 11 on a scale of one to ten, I’d stop for a moment and stare at the picture. I’d sigh, and continue my endeavours.

I imagined that the occupants of the boat were just stirring, after a peaceful night under the stars. They’d have turned on the little gas stove and were patiently waiting for the kettle to boil, and the first brew of the day (always the nicest). After this imaginary breakfast, they might choose to sit in the cockpit and read, disturbed only by the sounds of birds going about their daily routine, or the sound of wavelets finding the nearby shore. Perhaps they’d planned to make sail, to haul up the anchor and head off into the mist, in search of yet another idyllic anchorage. I’d usually berate myself for working too hard, and once again promise myself that I’d learn to sail and some day, I too would own a boat like that, would sleep at anchor, and would sip coffee and read, without a care in the world.

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