Introducing our newest contributor, Wally Moran

My life on a sailboat happened because of a lawyer. Without going into details, this lawyer doing what litigation lawyers do made my life so unpleasant that I was open to alternate lifestyles. The one I was living wasn't so much fun anymore. Something had to change. 

I had my 7.4 metre sloop Publisher's Choice docked at Dutchman's Cove in Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. Dropping by the marina mid-January, I ran into old friends who kept their 37 Irwin there.  

They planned to retire to the Caribbean, and we discussed that for quite some time. I read e-mails from another couple already in the Caribbean on their Morgan 41.

Little did I know a seed had been planted that would see its fruition only when I had totally changed my life.  I reread sailing magazines for evidence that people actually lived and cruised on boats and soon decided I liked the idea – what's not to like?

I had contemplated cruising previously. In my early twenties, one of my closest friends wanted to buy a boat for charters. We looked at a decrepit wooden trimaran, planning its refurbishment. We would have had the perfect boat for our plans and at the perfect time too, as chartering was just then catching on.  

In my thirties, a lady I dated wanted to buy a boat and charter it together in the south Pacific. I passed, not being as enamoured of the lady as she was of me.

Now I needed to seriously consider the dream, as it arose this time from my own soul.

Never having been a saver, there was no kitty available for a sailing lifestyle. I needed to save a lot of money. I would need to purchase  - with apologies to Publisher's Choice – a larger, more seaworthy boat. I would need funds to live on and, eventually, retire on.

I was in the newspaper business so the answer seemed simple. Establish a sailing publication, build it up, sell it out in five years. Then go. That I could do this I had little doubt. Find (or create) a need, then fill it. 

That this plan never had a prayer of working was actually how things ended up.

My website's mainstay was book reviews. This entailed contacting marine publishers for review copies. My intent was twofold.  

One was to create an interesting knowledge base for the site. The other, to educate myself about sailing using these books as my texts, the authors as my professors, my fellow sailors as mentors. I was embarking on the equivalent of a four year university course, the graduation ceremonies consisting of casting off the lines and sailing to a new life. Isn't that a wonderful metaphor for a graduation? 

My library soon comprised sailing's best known authors: Adlard Cole's Heavy Weather Sailing, Cornell's World Cruising Routes, Hinckley's Guide to Yacht Care, John Vigor, Don Casey, Dan Spurr, Nigel Calder – they and more were represented. 

The books that captured my attention were the books on cruising. The Pardeys, Smeetons, Liz Copeland, Martin Hederich, Gerry Heuting (who founded Dutchman's Cove), Tom Neale and others…they'd been there, done it. Some were still doing it.

I wanted, needed, to read what they said. Their books became my textbooks, they the teachers who inspired me.

They whispered into my ears, their lives crept into my dreams, they beckoned from their boats as I chased after their sterns.

I noticed something strange. They weren't writing to tell us about their adventures, their fabulous lifestyle. They were inviting us to join them, if we would.

"Go!" they said. "Go!", and as they became good and familiar friends, their "Go!"' became 'come', their hands reaching out to grasp mine as I leapt aboard. 

To sailors, this discovery is no surprise. For those who are not, you will learn if you become a sailor that the fraternity welcomes all who care to join them and that the camaraderie of the sea is alive and well, even on the smallest inland lake.

Now, a boating writer myself, I find myself saying "Go!" as I reach out to others reading my words.

'Go!'  

Wally sails his Dufour 34, Gypsy Wind, between the Great Lakes and the Caribbean, including Cuba. He writes for SAIL and Waterway Guide, creates sailing videos and lectures at various boat shows…when he's not pinching himself while wondering if he's dreaming.

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