Category Archives: Experiential

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

Last Day at “Work”

I’ve imagined this day for more than ten years.  When asked, “When are you going to leave Sony Pictures and start sailing around the world?” my reply was, “In two years.”  For ten years I was always two years away from leaving the studio.  Just as a broken clock is right twice a day, eventually my “in-two-years” prediction was correct. Today, looking back two years, it happened.  Today, after more than twenty years, I no longer wake up and prepare myself to go to the studio.

Imagining what this day would be like, I thought it would feel like the first day of a prolonged vacation, liberating and invigorating.  But it doesn’t.  Over that past few days, so many of my colleagues wrote and/or met with me to thank me for my service and wish me well on my upcoming adventure.  Not wanting to cry throughout the day, the last day was an exercise in burying my reflex to connect with my emotions, as I looked my friends in the eye, thanked them, and hugged.  I was on the verge all day long.  I love these people and I love what we’ve done together.  I made them all promise to stay in touch, to read our blog, to write in.  As the day came to a close and I walked out from my office for the last time, I felt vulnerable.  No longer would I so easily be able to provide for my family.  Income and insurance will no longer by at our fingertips.  We’ll have to develop other ways to support ourselves.  When I told them how I felt, my co-managers reminded me how well I’ve always done with anything I’ve started at the studio.  Any endeavor I started at the studio, when supported by the studio, did very well.  That these skills I take with me.  This venture would be no different.  Because I have the complete support of my family, especially Leslie, this endeavor should be just, if not even more, successful than those at the studio.  In writing this, I find myself not stating that I’m no longer “working,” for I will be working just as hard, if not harder than I did when I was at the studio.

So, this first day, I am not excited about sailing around the world.  I am concerned, just as I was concerned when I started every business venture at the studio.  And just as I have done with every business venture, I will pour my complete attention and effort into making this adventure, and sharing this adventure with an audience I hope to build, a success. Along the way, I will reach out to like-minded experts at every step, for I know that my best work is achieved through collaboration, that the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.  You, the reader, are probably an expert in something that can make this trip better, so help us; use your expertise to turn this trip into something wonderful for young people, to inspire them to reach beyond and see what’s on the other side of the rainbow.

Sony Rainbow

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Mindset, Prepping Kandu

You Can’t Always Get What You Want . . .

We had planned to depart on our adventure last year, joining the Baja Haha Rally.  That didn’t happen.  We were disappointed.  Ironically, a month after it was decided we would not depart as planned, a local newspaper came out with a wonderful story describing our proposed adventure.  And we went to the Baja Haha party in San Diego anyway.  After all, we’d paid for it.  It didn’t bother me to be seen as the family that wasn’t going on the trip.  I was learning important life lessons: patience and gratitude topping the list.  I looked for the good.  We now had more time to transition from our three bedroom house and into our 42-foot boat.  We had more time and resources to improve our future home afloat, equipping her with better tools and technology.  We had more time to learn new skills of safety and first-aid procedures, of marine weather forecasting, of how we can share our experience with school kids and use our voyage to hopefully make a positive difference in the world, and of how to make this experience a more positive one for our family.  And best of all, we’ve been able to establish new life-long friendships, and continue to do so.  In retrospect, as the song exclaims, . . . “we get what we need.”

Eric's Posts, Experiential, Prepping Kandu

On The Hard in Ventura

Kandu’s outsides are getting cleaned up: her 42-foot white and forrest green hull waxed, two coats of red copper bottom paint applied to her 6-foot draft, her reconditioned 3-blade Classic Max Prop installed and painted with zinc, 4 sacrificial zincs replaced, 17 seacocks lubed (replaced as needed), a new speed/depth/temp meter installed, and her 54-foot mast overhauled: 5 new halyards, 8 new sheaves, a new spinnaker crane at the masthead, 2 new jumper stays, corrosion and chafing abatement, a new 4G broadband radar, a new hailing speaker, a new antenna, a new wind speed and direction meter, a new LED tri-color masthead light, 2 new powerful LED spreader lights, a new LED steaming light, a lightning dissipater, and more.  Next week, Kandu goes back in the water.  The electronics installation will hopefully be completed soon and batteries added so we can close up all the interior walls and cubby spaces lifted open and exposed to run the cabling.  The family can start moving on board.

Our stay at the Ventura Marina and Yacht Yard has been pleasant.  Prior to owning the yard, the owner, Sam, studied whales for several decades, getting his Ph.D in the study.  He now owns and operates the boat yard, the adjacent restaurant/piano bar, and fuel dock.  With one of his two colorful Macaw parrot on his shoulder and a cigar between his fingers, it’s not uncommon to hear him offer maintenance solutions for the boat on his way to dealing with a fuel dock issue.  Then spot him seating guests in his elegant seaside dining room/piano bar.

On the Hard 1 On the Hard 3 On the Hard 2 Mast on the Hard