My O’Day 22 Sailboat Blog

A few months ago I spotted an O’Day 22 parked on the street around the corner from the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market in Ventura. I decided that I would stop and chat with the owner since he was right there working on his boat. It’s not something I typically do but the camaraderie of owning the same boat made me feel like we’d at least have that to talk about.

When I got out of the car I noticed the owner was inside the cabin tidying things up so I walked up next to the boat and introduced myself. He was an older man and later I found out that he had just bought this boat from Redding in Northern California and was on his way down to the Yucatan peninsula. The tow vehicle was a smallish, 20 year old Ford pickup truck and I was frankly kind of amazed that he had made it this far already. He proceeded to tell me quite a scary tale about coming down the side of a cliff with the brakes on the verge of failure with the boat and trailer behind him. It apparently had already been quite an adventure for him thus far and it is no even close to being over.

He introduced me to his native Yucatan wife whom he met and married while he was living in Mexico. They flew up to the States to visit his family and bought the truck and the boat for the trip back. It’s great to see someone his age still has the spirit of adventure in him. I wished him farewell and bon voyage as I snapped this little photo of his boat with my cameraphone…