Bon Voyage

I have the habit of starting projects and never finishing them.  It is a hereditary defect that I have inherited from both sides my family... and it is something I am really striving to change about myself.  At the moment I have a needlepoint stocking and glasses case that need to be finished, as well as a knit sweater for myself and one for a baby...and that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Above is my biggest project that I began seven years ago.  I would like to introduce you to Lil' M.  She is free to a good home...custom trailer included.  Tell your friends. 

Lil' M was built by eye on the beach in Man-o-War Cay, Bahamas in 1951.  My dad happened upon her here on Amelia Island in 2002 and bought it for me as my college graduation gift.  She is lovely, like all boats made by the Albury Brothers who have been building boats in the Carribean for over 200 years.  Gaff rigged, she is a 23 foot sloop in need of total restoration.  The old girl is really a piece of folk art, a real beauty of a boat.

I had high hopes of restoring her myself, but after a 2 week course at the Wooden Boat School in Brooklyn, Maine I realized that I had neither the skill, nor the time handle such a massive project.  She has sat high and dry in a little green cinderblock building behind a sea food restaurant here for the past 8 years...up until yesterday.

With the help of Laurence Piper, of The Angler's Mark, we hauled her to a vacant lot, owned by my grandmother in town.  Before the elements take their toll on her I must find her a new owner.  If you know anyone who might be interested in a gorgeous wooden boat project...please drop me a line.

For years I would daydream about living on this little boat and spending my time drifting about the Caribbean.  I would cook and read and meet interesting people, who also sailed. Perhaps I would join them for dinner aboard their vessel.  If that were the case I would bring something delicious in this...

It is a tiffin set Chef gave to me as a Mother's Day gift.  Tiffins are used in India as a sort of lunch box.  Actually in Mumbai there is an entire industry of people called tiffin-wallahs who pick up hot lunch from people's homes and deliver the food to them at their place of  work.  The set is a group of stackable containers that are clamped together.  

This particular set came with a hip recycled fabric bag and bamboo place setting. 

I would dine with an elderly couple, tanned from travel in the sun. They would tell me stories about wintering in the Med.  We would drink rum and watch the sunset, and then I would hop on my dingy and row back to my little sloop.  There I would snuggle down with a novel, something classic like Don Quixote and drift off to sleep. 


 A girl can dream.