Page Rick - Get Real, Get Gone: How to Become a Modern Sea Gypsy and Sail Away Forever

Introduction

For the sake of comfort, we give up knowing the world.

ANON

There is a lot to be said about being rich and living a life of luxury, or so we are continually told by television and glossy magazines.

The media enthusiastically reports upon the successes and excesses of the rich and famous with a mixture of amazement and implicit adulation. The second homes that incompetent bankers buy with their obscenely large bonuses or the fifty million dollars Johnny Depp gets paid to reprise his role (again!) as a slightly effeminate pirate, are all held up for our amazement and education as to what constitutes the good life

The press coo over the mega-yachts of the rich and the elective surgery of the famous until it almost goes without saying that a life of pampered luxury is to be desired above all else.

What you dont hear so much about is the fantastic lightness of being and genuine advantages that can come from being less well off.

This book is a practical guide to living and exploring on a sailboat, but in many ways it is also about the spiritual benefits that come from living on next to nothing and the attitude of mind that one needs to develop in order to access them.

In many ways, your success as a watery wanderer will largely depend on your attitude. If you would genuinely prefer to go to sea in a million dollar yacht full of gin and bikinis, then put this book down and get off your tushy and go and make 20 million dollars. There is nothing for you here.

But if getting real about your life and embarking upon a great adventure, on what you can realistically scrape together sets your tummy tingling, then you are most definitely in the right place.

Jasna and I do not sail past a million dollar yacht and secretly wish it was us! No way. We know exactly what comes with that kind of vessel the worry, the endless maintenance, the astronomical bills, the sky-high insurance, the environmental guilt and the constant vigilance of being ripped off. You cant sneak into a small anchorage or a quiet little harbour. Nor can you drop the anchor in a bay that is a little shallow or explore narrow channels or rivers. You cannot personalize your floating home or make small repairs with old materials (I have just made an instrument cover from some old bits of teak and aluminium which gave me great pleasure, cost nothing and is totally unique). No way. Once you have a million dollar baby, you have to keep her looking like she just left the shop. The rich have to protect their investment, while us sea gypsies are simply living in our homes.

We have been aboard many posh yachts and always make the appropriate noises (ooh that is a great freezer, ahh that is a cool washing machine) but have always been happy to get back to Calypso - our simple little home. Why? Because we know in reality what all those flash gadgets and leather sofas cost the owner in time, worry and money. We have seen his fuel bill, we have listened to his worries about finding honest crew or a boatyard big enough to haul his huge bottom out of the water. Expensive, complicated vessels can isolate you from the very world you are hoping to discover and actually prevent you from enjoying life at sea and absorbing the spiritual gifts that are so often the bedfellows of a simpler life.

The rich throw money at problems. Us sea gypsies sort them out ourselves and with that, we become better sea gypsies. Rich people buy what they want. Sea gypsies buy what is essential and with that become better citizens of the Earth. Rich people tend to hide in air-conditioned marinas. Sea gypsies sit under palm trees and meet local people and gain insight. Rich people create waste by throwing away perfectly usable items under the banner of upgrading. Sea gypsies fix stuff. Rich people are targets for poorer people. Sea gypsies are poorer people and sleep with the door open.

Hence the title of the book, Get Real and Get Gone . You can live in a dream world of million dollar yachts and plastic people still stuck in the showing off stage of their development, or with a slight change in attitude, you can get real with the money you actually have (or can realistically acquire), and get gone on the greatest adventure of your life

Chapter 1

Getting Started

In the next chapter we will show you how to start your new life as a sea gypsy as quickly as possible. You will need some money (not as much as you think, but some) and a big dollop of determination, but every day, perfectly ordinary people like you and I are ditching the dirt for a better life at sea and there is no reason why you can't too. The important thing is to get started. If you already know how to sail and have a bit of money put by, you can read the last paragraph of this chapter and move on.

However, if like us, you are starting out with little experience and less money, then read on...

When I (Rick) decided I wanted to ditch the dirt and become a sea gypsy, my circumstances meant I had to carry on working for another three years before I could get going, but every day I moved my plan along a little by acquiring the skills and knowledge necessary for a safe and enjoyable life at sea. Once your have a picture of your future life in your mind and truly believe it to be attainable, you will find all the motivation you need. This book aims to give you that picture by demonstrating how attainable this life is for anyone who wants it. But for now, let us look at what you can do the moment you finish this book.

Sailing is pretty easy. It is not rocket science or even French cuisine. Anyone can do it. It is not gender specific, does not require advanced motor skills or particularly high levels of physical fitness. If you can jog for a hundred meters, you will do.

You can save an awful lot of money (which can ultimately be spent on your boat) and have huge amounts of fun by buying yourself a small sailing dinghy (preferably with a mainsail and a jib, but anything will do) that will fit on top of a car. Spend a little time reading any beginners sailing book from the library or visit any website on how to sail, buy a couple of life jackets, grab a friend, drive to your local lake on a day with good conditions and go and get into trouble.

With a good book and a small sailboat, you can learn just about everything there is to know about the physics of sailing and you can sell them both when you are done. You do not need to pay a fancy school thousands of dollars to learn to set an anchor, trim a jib or reef a sail. (Things actually get easier when they get bigger it is virtually impossible to capsize a good sea boat and the boom is usually above head height when you are in the cockpit, so there is much less likelihood of it cracking you on the noggin).