I'm sitting here to bad out to do anything outside. Reading blogs from other sailors and thinking back to when I was on the water 8-12 hours a day 5,6 & 7 days a week.Those were great days. I worked in what I thought was the best group on the water at Disney. We carried folks from Dixie Landing (now Port Orleans Riverside) to downtown Disney on what Disney called the Sassagoula river. 2.5 miles of winding river through the woods under 3 bridges and across the lake at Downtown. What a ride!!. When I retired I was a trainer of incoming drivers and a shift leader. We made 8 trips a night every night until midnight. It was a boaters dream job. I never thought of it as a job more of a really fun fantasy. During one peroid of time I worked a 10 hour shift on which I was a spare boat just running the river keeping the docks cleaned off of guests. On a good day in 10 hours I could run the 2.5 mile river 23 times in a day. I was told it was not possible to do that but I did! And they kept trying to slow down the engines so I wouldn't move so fast but were never able to get the job done. Just one more challenge for me! I learned to dock a boat any way necessary front to, side to, both sides, multiple boating docking at once. Back in , slip-in side, j-dock. If not for my stroke forcing me to retire I'd still be out there terrorizing the river Hee Hee! I loved that job! Then on my days off sailing my own boat. I've sailed the keys, the gulf, the intra-coastal, the St. John's river. And various lakes around O-town One of my favorite sails was off Sanibel from the back side. I was told I couldn't get through blind pass under the bridge. All that did was to convince me it had to be done. At the tme I was sailing a 16' cat and I was 15 years younger. I headed for the bridge on a waning tide and as I came up to the bridge from the East I dropped my mast back on the trampoline, I laid down on the tramp next to the sail and floated under the bridge. As soon as I came out from under I reraised the mast and headed out into the gulf free and happy and secure in the fact that I did something I was told I couldn't do.
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