I’ve always enjoyed a good sailing yarn or an adventurous travel story. But the older I’ve got, and the more well travelled I’ve become, the less comfortably my erstwhile favourite stories sit with me.
And I think I know why.
Take for example the works of Tristan Jones, who wrote more than a dozen sailing books full of colourful characters, interesting encounters and dangerous adventures covering tens of thousands of nautical miles and spanning the entire globe. As anyone who has read the excellent biography Wayward Sailor by Anthony Dalton will know, he was, of course, full of shit. His stories ranged from the shamelessly embroidered to the totally fictitious. And in some ways, I respect the man all the more for pulling that off.
Take for another example the travelogues of “National Treasure” Michael Palin, who’s earth-girdling journeys have been liberally peppered with rich, interesting experiences and colourful characters. Not to diminish them in any way, he does have the benefit of a broadcasting giant and a hefty production team beavering away behind the scenes to set them up for him. Those colourful characters and rich experiences happened far from by chance.
The simple and sad truth is that life is boring, life is dull and life is dismally predictable. One does not stumble across adventure at every turn when one sets off travelling in this world. One is lucky to ever stumble across danger and excitement at all. Having clocked up my first 3000 nautical miles of crewing and courses, I can honestly say that hardly anything interesting, noteworthy or dramatic has happened to me at all.
It seems to me that there are two routes to an interesting travel story. You can contrive it, by deliberately putting yourself “in life’s way”, or you can plain lie about it.
But having finally taken the, hopefully only metaphorical, plunge with my own boat, I think there could be a third way too.
Being a complete and utter klutz.
This is my story.
