A Boating Life for Me

Photo provided by Amy Reynolds

Please join me in welcoming Amy Reynolds as a guest this week at Write on the Water. Amy has been writing for marine publications for many years, most recently as the founding editor of a regional boating publication, Waterside News.  Welcome Aboard, Amy!

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Growing up in the Midwest, my primary experience with water was a view of the muddy Mississippi as it filled my yard and I waded through the waist deep chill with a box held over my head wondering if this would be the time our house simply floated away.

Jump forward a couple years to the age of 18 when I hitchhiked to California (yes, a bit impetuous, but it's served me well for the most part) and two new friends, on learning I'd never seen the ocean, took me to Malibu Beach. Walking out onto the sand and seeing such a vast expanse of water that only ended where it met the sky made an impression on me I'd never experienced in my young life. It has only been equaled since by the births of my children and falling in love.

I only lasted a year in California, mostly in San Francisco, before I returned to the security of the Midwest. But I made a promise to myself that no matter what, I would someday move to a coast and live on the water.

Jump forward almost 20 years to the summer of divorce. I was living outside Atlanta and hadn't managed to make it to the water yet, but my writing career was sprouting wings (ok, feathery nubs), my kids were teenagers (almost out of the nest!), and the whole world was in front of me. One weekend when the kids were at their dad's, I packed up my dog and an overnight bag and headed for Jekyll Island – the only place on the nearest coast where I could take my furry companion. My best bud, Bex, who'd purchased a houseboat earlier that year, insisted I go walk the docks at a local marina and look at boats. I was resistant. Why would I want to walk on wood and look at floating vehicles when I could walk on the beach and look at the ocean? But as it happened, it was the best advice I've ever gotten. I met a couple who lived aboard and it occurred to me that weekend that if living near the water was good, then living in a boat on the water had to be so much better!

And that was it. Within four months I'd purchased my own small sailboat, a U.S. Yachts 25 (I know, you've never heard of it. It was a Pierson design.), put it on the nearest lake where I could visit it every weekend, and rearranged my entire life plan to include living on a real sailboat and exploring the world from my floating home. It took me another two years to move to saltwater, and I've bought and sold several boats since then, though have yet to live aboard full time. However. That time is finally near at hand.

The youngest has reached the age of majority (as in getting his butt out of mama's house), the boating newspaper I started over two years ago has proven successful, and it's time to start shopping for the perfect boat. Ah, I can see you flinch! I uttered the words, "perfect boat."

But that topic's for another time. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this: don't give up the dream. If you believe and work and have faith (in whatever or whomever gives you hope) then it will happen. Write your heart out (literally) and keep a weather eye.

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Amy Reynolds was a regular columnist for various regional newspapers and online magazines for more than ten years, and is also the publisher and founding editor of a regional boating publication, Waterside News. This allows her to combine her two passions, writing and sailing, as well as providing her with other water-related adventures such as trapping alligators, hanging out on NOAA research vessels, fishing, and exploring her local waterways. She lives on a back-barrier island in Coastal Georgia with her dogs, the occasional adult child who will hopefully be vacating for good soon, and a burr fish named Puff. She is currently completing revisions on her novel and saving money for her first liveaboard sailboat. She can be reached at amy@watersidenews.com

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