Saturday, June 17, 2017

Rowland Leaves us:

Rowland

Time to say goodbye to Rowland.  He has another commitment and despite my best pleading, tears and outright groveling, his integrity would not allow him to renege on that obligation.  Darn integrity- -gets you every time.

Before we move on, I must pay tribute to Rowland.  Prior to meeting him, everyone we contacted that knew him said he was a great guy and very experienced captain/sailor.  While that is true, to get to know him is to really appreciate him.   Over the past month we learned so much about Rowland:

• He was raised on a farm in South Africa and can speak Zulu which he demonstrated for us and tried to teach Doug a few swear words (boys!!);
• He has a wonderful accent- I could listen to it 24/7- and uses words or phrases like ‘mate’ or ‘time for a spot of tea’;
• We had to purchase a tea kettle so Rowland could make a ‘proper cup o tea’ each day – something we gladly did;
• He has so many life adventures and experiences to share and has spent decades around boats and boat building. He proved this over and over as we dealt with system issues over the past 10 days; his advice was invaluable;
• As a young man, he and 3 friends built a catamaran out of wood from pallets and set off sailing across the Pacific. He ultimately ended up in St Maarten and spent years there;
• He has a lovely wife, he adores, and two daughters;
• He has GREAT tunes that we listened to;
• He is a dancer (I’ll leave it to you to decide if he’s good with the video I’ve attached I warned him it was going in the blog);
• He is patient, polite to a fault (such a ‘proper gentleman’) and made a point of putting on a shirt before dinner;
• Despite my skepticism, he taught me to work the sails and prepare the boat for docking- though admittedly I am still very much the rookie;
• He truly acted as an ‘advisor’ versus a captain, always recognizing Doug was the captain and encouraging him to make the decisions;

I could go on and on.

We miss having him around already.  He came aboard as our contract captain and he left as our friend (I have to admit I am shedding a few tears as I write this).

May we sail again together in the future is our hope.