Nov 12 2008
Free advice
The other day, as I was using a grinder up on deck (I’d earlier drilled 18 holes, cored them, and filled them with epoxy in preparation for installing two rails to fasten the dinghy onto), a fella walked by and offered the best kind of advice there is: free advice.
He was wearing a gray t-shirt from which his stomach protruded, and he had a beer in hand. It was maybe noon. I liked him already.
“So when are you leaving?” he asked.
I pulled my ear plugs out and turned off the grinder, and he repeated his question.
“Not for more than a year,” I said.
“Well, remember, after you’re all stocked up on food, then buy your electronics.”
“Sounds like good advice,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I’ve wrecked all my fuckin’ electronics.”
He went on… he said he’d spent his whole life sailing in Maine — in fog so thick you couldn’t see your hand, and in which GPS didn’t work worth a damn — and that he’d only run aground once, “and that’s cause I was piss drunk.”
Here’s thanks for his advice, and envy for his stories.
