I am so fortunate.

I get paid to do what I love to do – mess around on boats.  In the course of doing that I often meet and hang out with the most interesting people.  Yesterday and again today I'll skipper a Hunter 44 for a couple who - as a celebration of his birthday - have come to stay on the boat and sail on Tampa Bay.  He turns 90 today.  She is 87.  They have been married for 62 years.  

 

When younger they owned several boats.  They've lived on a 50 foot Chris Craft for a year and a half in Manhattan's 79^th Street Boat Basin.  They had both sailboats and powerboats when they lived in the Keys.  They cruised the Bahamas on a 27 foot sailboat.  Now they lack the agility and the strength to sail on their own.  They live with serious health issues but refuse to let those issues keep them from grabbing the moment and enjoying what they can yet do. 

 

I can't tell you how touching and inspiring it is to spend time with them, learning their histories and their attitude toward life.  And to think – they pay me.  I should be paying them.