Skipper’s View
Equatorial Guinea and in the course of the conversation I happened to mention that I had a small yacht that I kept nearby. 'What do you do with it?' She asked: 'Do you go fishing?' I had to admit I did not Well, three months of lockdown trapped on a boat in France did for me and I accepted I needed to live somewhere I could stand up straight if I was to retain a shred of sanity. The relief has been great but it did put me in a new and novel position this spring of owning a yacht purely as a luxury item. As I was stripping varnish off the boat and then painstakingly slapping it back on in March, the blank look of my Equatorial Guinean friend flashed back. What in the world was I doing all of this for? I must admit I even went to the lengths of buying a fishing rod in order to justify my lavish lifestyle. Then I actually went sailing on a wild early April evening as the Tramontana screamed past and twisted the clouds into extraordinary shapes that glowed in the sunset, I remembered how vital and life affirming being out a boat is; how it brings you so much closer to nature and the elements - how it gives you at least a small feeling of freedom. Welll, this spring more than ever, this is the case. That first sail will rarely have felt sweeter after these tough months of
