So… elaborate….

Before the rally becomes nothing but a foggy memory

It may really become nothing but a foggy memory

Before it all becomes nothing but a foggy memory in a new year… Here is what has transpired since my carnival wanderings in Trinidad…

For the impatient… in a one liner…

The Nereid’s Rally 2015

Period… read no further… but at least look at the pictures… 🙂

Ah… yet another one (rally that is), and at the risk of having this blog start to get monotonous, I’ll tell you all about it in great detail…

It can occasionally be difficult to concentrate on work here in Saint Laurent

It can occasionally be difficult to concentrate on work here in Saint Laurent

The story does have some legs and may take many a post in the telling so do indulge me…

It all started in Grenada with a girl in a polkadot bikini who definitely wasn’t afraid of coming out of the water.

Afraid to come out of the water?

Afraid to come out of the water?

Enter my racy assistant Nereid’s Rally promoter Carrisa Victor… (Yes it is spelt that way).

Pan player extraordinaire, founder of the S.P.O.R.S. Performing arts company, and all round talented lady…. ahem!

Let's play pan...

Let’s play pan…

Together we gave a small presentation at Prickly Bay Marina to drum up a few new entrants for this years event. One crew showed interest… Never mind, the trip wasn’t a total loss and there was still plenty of time before the start in September, (this was March).

But I had to get back to French Guiana and start the proverbial ball rolling… Or perhaps the not so proverbial mooring buoy floating…

Eileen of Avoca on one of Saint Laurent's first mooring buoys.

Eileen of Avoca on one of Saint Laurent’s first mooring buoys.

Life as a sailing bum

Here is one for the boys at the office....

Another life ago, when I was just starting my university studies, I would disdainfully look down on the unemployed and seemingly unemployable surfer types (“wax heads” to use the colloquial term) at my local beach. “Good for nothings!, Why don’t they get a job and do something useful with their lives? Social leaches the lot of them”…

Little did I know at the time, that the condescending attitude was in fact misdirected envy. It took a decade of wage slavery for me to realise that they had had the right idea.

Spend your youth playing in the surf and sand, chase women all day, keep fit, get a decent tan and live without a care in the world.

My long haired hippie looki

I suppose most of them are now married, in debt up to their eyeballs making mortgage payments and loosing hair worrying about how to set aside enough for their children’s education. So be it, they had their care free days.

Mine start now…

So what if I’m a bit older. At least I’ve acquired enough material wealth to forego the monthy queues for unemployment benefits! I was even able to afford something more substantial than a surf board to play with.

Time to let my hair down… thankfully I still have plenty… and become exactly what I’d belittled so many years ago. An itinerant, a bum… albeit one with some means.

I guess it’s my turn to be looked upon with scorn… or unrealised envy. 😉