Sailing

When I think of sailing I imagine sexy, tanned people wearing white. We’ll be sitting on the deck sipping pina coladas as the boat magically sails itself across flat, sparkling blue water. Along the way we will spot a tropical island, possibly with buried treasure. We’ll spend the afternoon there, eating fresh seafood and swimming.

After sunset, the mood changes. Sexy people turn into grizzly old men. We will sit in the mahogany cabin around a bottle of run and they’ll tell me tall tales of the sea.

That’s not what this is like. First off, this is Canada. Canada is cold. It’s the middle of summer here and today there were highs of 10 degrees. I wear a giant, orange survival suit to keep me warm.

I spend most of the days steering over bumpy seas. We see islands, and although beautiful, are not exactly great for swimming. The water temperature is around 4 degrees. That means you’ve got about 30 minutes in it before you die.

After an evening meal out of cans, we sit around and talk about what it would be like if we were stuck on this boat forever, and who we would eat first.