I was born in Calcutta India as an Anglo-Indian to a working-class family, when I was six months old my family moved to Australia to start a new life.
Both my parents were very hard working and toiled hard to put a roof over our heads in the early 70s.
I can remember as a small boy playing with blades of grass and sticks and a channel of water making small boats and watching them float down my imaginary river. Building ships out of scrap wood, hammering bits to make the perfect boat.
I know the kids today don't play like this for sure.
As I grew my father bought a kit build boat, I guess he saw my desire and was determined to help me succeed, as any father would for their child. It was a simple pram ply boat all of 10 feet long, we had so much fun building it and painting it up bright blue and yellow inside.
As I got older my father and I spent every weekend fishing and on the water, I would never want to come home and just wanted to stay out all the time playing with the boat.
Life went on and at that time we didn't have all the opportunities kids now days have so I was sent to work at the young age of 16, the dream was on hold from there. I guess we all have our own share of challenges in life.
Well, it's taken more than thirty years of work, and well let's just say failures to get to where I'm now!
The story starts like this, ten years ago I had a work challenge that was a blessing in disguise let's call it, the chance to go to Hong Kong and Macau and live the life of an expat.
Before long I had met a great new friend that introduced me to the idea of living on the water on his original teak junk boat, he also introduced me to sailing aboard "amateur" racing yachts, I was lucky enough to sail a handful of times off the Hong Kong coast and I fell in love again with the water, this was what I'd been looking for, the lifestyle of living and sailing burned strong.
But it wasn't to be, the project I was working came to an end and I had to return to Australia where I spent the next five years, again trapped as I now recollect.
Three years ago in 2014, I was again courted to return to Macau, I was determined this time to pay my debts to save hard and secure my next home, boy didn't see it coming.
Along came Ana!
And the beginning of The Dream.
It wasn't long Ana and I had spent a lot of time together when my now long time friend asked if we would look after his home for Christmas of 2015, now sporting a new fiber glass junk (home) on the water in Aberdeen. We jumped at the chance even though it was the early winter.
Well fair to say Ana was hooked, we wanted a life on the water.
I said: "you know we can do this, live on the water!"
And yep she said: "well better still we can do it on a sailboat!"
I think from that moment my life changed my dream was alive again, and I had a soulmate that really had the same dreams as mine.
The beginning of The Dream.