Good Times Sailing With Good People

You know those kind of friendships that are more like arranged marriages?  That is kind of how I felt when I met Christian, a salty Austrian sailor that I met down in the Caribbean some six years back and have had the pleasure of sailing with on a number of occasions since.  I never thought I would meet someone who has an impressive sailing resume from a land-locked country, but if I had a nickel for every day he has spent on the water, I would be a very rich man.  Sailing is also his bread and butter, as he writes and shoots for a number of European publications, so we have a little more in common than the love for the sea.  At over twice my age, he still says I shouldn’t waste my time in this business–with a smile on his face of course.

And when you get the opportunity to sail with Christian, you don’t look at your calendar, you don’t think about it, you just go.  This time it was the French island of Corsica, smack dab in the middle of the Med and about a four hour ferry ride from Italy.  We had amazing weather for the most part, although some rough seas and westerly winds plagued us at the beginning, it was smooth sailing from there on out.  And when I say weather, I mean the ambient temperatures.  In the water we had about a 15 minute limit before turning purple, especially my model (thanks Cynthia!).

Good times were had by everyone on the trip with amazing architecture and French food in the fishing towns and crystal clear water in the secluded bays.  The only shock for me came when we dropped 8 euros on a traditional French breakfast of bread, jam and coffee–I kept waiting for the server to bring out a plate of Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage!  But hey, we were well off the beaten tourist path, and I didn’t mind it too much since we got to experience the real France.  The icing on the cake was no one spoke a lick of English (its good to get out of your comfort zone every now and then and speak another language).