Let me start by saying that this blog post has absolutely nothing to do with life at Les Terraces, or Sainte-Foy, or anything else in France.
Have you ever wanted an adventure? I did. I still do (don’t tell Graham). I was lucky enough to realise that the sort of adventure I was interested in was not likely to be encountered while pushing a shopping trolley around Sainsbury’s in Maidenhead while I was still young enough to seek one. Actually, the revelation came to me as I was doing just that!
The awareness of a desire for adventure is one thing. Doing something about it is something completely different. And then, of course, the challenge is to define the sort of adventure one wishes to have. Mine began with a chance comment made by a customer at my parents’ pub, which lead to packing a bag and buying a one-way ticket to the Caribbean.
To be honest, that hardly counts as an adventure. Particularly as, having arrived here, I never left. I could have worked as a cook on a small research vessel that was going up into the arctic circle for 2 years. It was tempting, but the thought of exchanging a working wardrobe of a swimsuit for a drysuit was less than a siren song for this girl.
When I was contemplating embarking on my adventure I thought to myself (age 22) “I’m young, I have some skills that I can probably use to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach (basic sailing and reasonable cooking). I am between jobs, not in a relationship and owe no-one any money. This is the time to go: if I don’t do it [have an adventure] now I’ll find myself on a career ladder (hopefully), in relationship (if I’m lucky), with kid(s) (fingers crossed) and a mortgage, and then I won’t be able to do it. And when I’m older I’ll kick myself for not having done it when the opportunity presented itself.”
Forgive me, dear reader, for the arrogance of youth and sounding as if older people can’t have adventures too. Of course I knew, theoretically, that adventures are possible at any age. It was the sort of adventure that made the difference. So here I am almost a quarter of a century later: middle 40s, a kid on his way to university, and a mortgage. But life is still an adventure, of sorts. And I’m not finished yet!
However, a friend who has a daughter a week older than Mo has leapt at the opportunity for a true adventure of a life-time. Dave Hildred, salty-sea-dog & structural engineer, has joined three other men on a fabulous trip across the Atlantic on a home-made raft. The energetic mind behind the trip belongs to an apparently young and lively octogenarian called Anthony Smith. His expedition’s web site and blog can be found here. The raft upon which they have set sail is called “An-tiki” as a humorous reference not only to Mr. Smith’s age, but the collective age of entire crew (260 years).
Now, to be honest, as much as I envy Dave his trip, I’m not sure that I would have seized the same opportunity, even if it had been presented to me on a silver salver. Would I really want to exchange life’s creature comforts to spend 10 weeks bobbing around on the oggin living in a small quonset hut on a 70′ raft with 3 other people? No, I don’t think so. Not now. But 25 years ago – oh, yes!