I apologize to those of you who feel that they ought to have gotten more advance notice, but don’t feel left out, nobody knew this was coming, not even me.
I was cruising crewseekers.net a few hours ago and one listing caught my eye about a delivery of a 46 foot yacht from Houston to Edinburgh with brief rest and resupply layovers in the Bahamas and the Azores. One of their junior crew broke their leg Saturday afternoon. The schedule is very tight and so they desperately needed crew willing to ship out tomorrow, they’re paying 3000 dollars and covering expenses for a flight back to Houston from Scotland. The listing said to call as late as necessary, that the posting would be taken down when the slot was filled, and I did. I told the skipper that I only had experience on a lake and on a much smaller boat, but apparently just having a warm body and knowing port from starboard was enough.
I’ve spent the last hour and a half throwing together the stuff I need for the 2 month trip plus a few weeks in Scotland at the far end. I don’t know that I’m going to tell my boss tomorrow morning, but we ship out at 10 am, and I’ve got to get to Houston. My lease is expiring May 31st, so if somebody is willing to move me, there’s 1000 dollars in it for them. I wish I had another day to clear everything up, but the later we wait the worse the potential of running into a tropical storm which apparently raises the insurance rates for transatlantic voyages immensely, so really the latest that you can leave and get good wind, but still be safe is April Fool’s Day.