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    • Crewing my brains out in SE Asia

      • In 1992, I had been backpacking and yacht-hitching through the South Pacific and SE Asia for four years. I was tired of moving, wanted a home -- but not where I was from, Toronto. In Singapore, I got offered a job varnishing the interior of a classic 100-year-old British sailing yacht called Cariad (built 1896), a stunner of a gaff-rigged ketch that was quite well known in yachting circles, and the last of a breed. She was then owned by a Japanese scrap metal dealer based in Singapore who rented her out for corporate sunset charters, using her as a tax loss for their business.

        I took the job at S$60/day. Worked aboard for six weeks, ate gorgeous lunches cooked up by our German skipper's amazingly talented (both in the kitchen and as a storyteller) Chinese wife each day for us 4-5 varnishers.

        When we were done, having been told there might be fulltime work for me back aboard her in a month or so, I took off to Tioman Island, Malaysia where I partied, dove with sharks and sea turtles, and jungle-trekked for 40 days straight. I even had a delightful underwater and in-room threesome with two lovely 20-something Swedish sisters with freshly shaved heads. Then, when all that was done, I sailed back to Singapore on another classic British yacht, an old run-down Thames River pilot boat called Amulet, with a bunch of other fun party animals, arriving a few days later.

        I went into town from the Changi Sailing Club, near where we'd anchored, called the skipper of Cariad to see about the job, got redirected to the new skipper, and was hired as the only fulltime live-aboard crew/nightwatchman at a very decent monthly salary, paid in tax-free US dollars. I started on a Monday morning at 9am, was picked up on the dock by Kenji, the new Japanese skipper, told to varnish all the wooden blocks in the rigging, while he did the much nastier job of repainting the steel ribs, down in the bilge, the boat's interior-bottom.

        All I did for five delicious months was work 9-5, sitting in a blue canvas deck chair in the breezy shade, wearing nothing but board shorts and sunnies, sanding the dozens of huge 19th C-era wooden blocks, varnish them and sand them again until I'd put seven coats on each. Day's end, we'd hop in our inflatable tender with its trusty 25hp Yamaha outboard (that little boat hauled serious ass) and I'd drop off Kenji on the dock at precisely 5:10pm. I'd shower, order a Tiger draught and dinner (the Club food was always amazing, spicy and cheap), then drink icy Tigers at that uber-comfy yacht club resto-bar with sailors from all over the world, then retreat back to Cariad at closing time, with a bunch of them, raging on till 2-3am most nights.

        I'd wake up again at 8:30am, shit/shower/shave, pick up Kenji on the dock, and do it all again. I had different girls from everywhere, 2-3 per week, the most interesting, funny and well-travelled people imaginable of all ages to party with, the whole boat to myself nights, a great liquor cabinet on board, a/c, laser disc, video, stereo, all top of the line, with this amazing view of the jungle and mangrove island of Ubin on one side, and Singapore and its Offshore Supply Depot docks on the other. That was a super-busy port where all these huge oil-related supply ships and rigs would come and go, day and night. Over one weekend at a yacht race in Thailand I flew up to compete in, which the boat (a different one) I was crewing on won. There, I met a fellow Canadian, a fun chick with money and an adventurous streak, and later left Cariad to rendezvous with her and yacht-hitchhike down the Pacific coast from Mexico to Panama. Yet another mad adventure.

        Living aboard Cariad was the finest 5 months of my life; I barely knew a thing about sailing or maintaining boats when I got the job. So, yes, I'd hoped that things would end up like this and they, fucking well more than did.

      • answered by champers on 05/16/2013
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    • Way back machine

      • I was four and was in the backyard with my new bow and arrow set, the arrows of which had sharp metal points. I was alone, mom in the kitchen, dad at work, and was shooting my arrows straight up in the sky and running out of the way when they returned to earth. One landed next door, where Betty and Hedly lived, two old ladies who were mean. They took my arrow and never gave it back, telling me I was bad. That's all I remember of it.

      • answered by champers on 01/10/2013
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    • What Makes Me Cry

      • Witnessing people who are exceptionally talented at what they do -- music, sports, the arts, anything. It's the knowledge of the hard work and passion and dedication that sets me off.

      • answered by champers on 02/02/2012
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    • A few 'me at my bests' come to mind

      • In the company of friends, I'd have to say it's when wit flows naturally all ways, the camaraderie feels rich and deep, the future feels like a piece o' cake, one's past screw-ups all fall safely into context, forgiven. It often seems alcohol and a hint of herb are of little harm in the reaching of this state, though not absolutely necessary.

        Alone, it's when reaching some new place or state of mind, the freshness of which is simply Elysian to all of one's pleasure zones. This happens in writing breakthroughs -- a kind of 'Jesus, I didn't know I had that in me' moment. It also happens when doing sport, one of those, 'Never thought I could make that, and so elegantly, and I'm not even tired' moments.

        There's a charity I set up for autism. We worked our arses off for 8-9 months toward the big fundraising night. When a famous painter's work sold in our art auction for $160,000, I knew the charity was going to take home a nice chunk that night, so all the hard labour had been worth it. That felt very sweet -- a new kind of buzz, a sort of kindness high hit me with more intensity than ever before. It lasted weeks. Buddha knew.

        And finally, to the naughty stuff. When I was about 32, I got a job on a 100-year-old sailing yacht, 118 ft long, based out of Singapore. I lived alone on board her for 6 months and partied every single night. One evening I was entertaining a beautiful young architect from Texas who worked downtown, when an also-gorgeous Israeli girl was delivered to my boat by a yachtsman in the anchorage who'd found her asking around for me on the dock. She'd just flown in from Tel Aviv, the first of another boat's crew, the rest of whom had yet to arrive, and she had been told to locate me and I'd look after her. Of course, I knew nothing of her impending arrival. I invited her aboard to join us for dinner. Long, delicious story short... off came several champagne corks, as did our clothes, with me devoting the entire night delivering my all, in service of fully satisfying these two lovely, willing and able wenches. I still clearly recall, at around dawn, looking up from my work -- most of which had taken place in the cooler airs of the boat's deck -- and thinking to myself, 'There cannot be a single bastard on this entire planet who feels so utterly delighted about life as I do at this moment.'

        That feeling also lasted for weeks.

        As a terrific book I recently finished proclaims, These Are The Days That Must Happen To You.

        Amen.

      • answered by champers on 10/20/2011
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    • Toy Fads From My Childhood Days

      • The Johnny Eagle Rifle. And I never did own one. But I did eventually get a German-made Gecado air rifle, very high powered, and put a scope on it. Ended up getting busted when my friend was shooting it out of my bedroom window one day and nearly shot an off-duty cop in the head. Missed by inches.

      • answered by champers on 07/21/2011
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