Product Description
What would you do if you were desperate to travel around the world, but you had little or no money to finance your trip? You could stay home feeling sorry for yourself, keep putting it off until you could afford it, or just pack a bag and go, hoping to be able to live on your wits and find work along the way. That's what Pat Bensky did in her early twenties, and it led to a three-year adventure as she worked her way around Europe, North Africa, the West Indies, Bahamas, and the USA. At times she was hungry, homeless, sick, miserable, ecstatic; was almost lost at sea, and cured of a serious illness by a West Indian witch doctor. But her resourcefulness, courage, and positive attitude steered her through the hard bits, and when she got to California, she decided that she
About the Author
When people asked the little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up, Pat Bensky replied, ?A writer!? But it wasn?t until reaching the age of 40-something, after going to college, traveling the world, doing various jobs from nanny to computer programmer, that she wrote her first book.
Excerpted from A Lizard in the Sun:Three Years of Zero Budget Travels by Patricia Bensky. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I had been in Gibraltar since February, and was beginning to think about moving on. It was the time of year when the winds are blowing in the right direction, and anyway nobody wants to spend winter in Europe, so the jet-set (or should I say, the sail-set) starts heading West across the Atlantic to the Bahamas, the West Indies, or America. Gibraltar is one of the main staging posts between Europe and the Caribbean, so I was in a good position to look for a boat job. Never mind that I'd never set foot on a yacht before; I figured that I could bluff my way into it.
One of those quiet afternoons in Lotti's a handsome West Indian man came in for a beer. We got talking and he mentioned that he was first mate on a motor yacht which was heading back to the West Indies. "Need any crew?" I asked. As it happened, they did: It turned out that their cook was taking a holiday; she was going to fly out to Antigua and meet up with the boat again there. So in the mean time, they had no cook. My new best friend, Kingsley, said he would take me to meet the captain to see about filling in. Later that afternoon we went down to the boat, a luxurious 100-ft cruiser called Don Quixote. I would have preferred a sailboat but was willing to make a concession, since it meant a free trip to the West Indies -- very high up on my list of places to visit. I was introduced to the captain, a Dutch chap whose name I can't remember, and the chief steward, an English fellow called Charles.
"Have you worked as a boat cook before?" the captain asked.
Of course I had, I lied.
"Where? What was the name of the boat?"
Plagiarising Elspeth's inspiring tales of sailing around Scotland and other parts, I told him I'd worked on a couple of different charter boats in Scotland, figuring that the chances of him ever having sailed in that area were pretty slim and he wouldn’t know if I said something wrong about the area. He didn't really appear to be all that bothered about my credentials; he had much more pressing matters on his mind. Turning to Charles, he asked if he had ordered the Greenies. Charles assured him that he had, and they would be delivered that afternoon.
As I left the boat I wondered vaguely about the Greenies, but my mind was really occupied with other matters: I had two days to get myself organised for the trip. I was going to Antigua!
One of those quiet afternoons in Lotti's a handsome West Indian man came in for a beer. We got talking and he mentioned that he was first mate on a motor yacht which was heading back to the West Indies. "Need any crew?" I asked. As it happened, they did: It turned out that their cook was taking a holiday; she was going to fly out to Antigua and meet up with the boat again there. So in the mean time, they had no cook. My new best friend, Kingsley, said he would take me to meet the captain to see about filling in. Later that afternoon we went down to the boat, a luxurious 100-ft cruiser called Don Quixote. I would have preferred a sailboat but was willing to make a concession, since it meant a free trip to the West Indies -- very high up on my list of places to visit. I was introduced to the captain, a Dutch chap whose name I can't remember, and the chief steward, an English fellow called Charles.
"Have you worked as a boat cook before?" the captain asked.
Of course I had, I lied.
"Where? What was the name of the boat?"
Plagiarising Elspeth's inspiring tales of sailing around Scotland and other parts, I told him I'd worked on a couple of different charter boats in Scotland, figuring that the chances of him ever having sailed in that area were pretty slim and he wouldn’t know if I said something wrong about the area. He didn't really appear to be all that bothered about my credentials; he had much more pressing matters on his mind. Turning to Charles, he asked if he had ordered the Greenies. Charles assured him that he had, and they would be delivered that afternoon.
As I left the boat I wondered vaguely about the Greenies, but my mind was really occupied with other matters: I had two days to get myself organised for the trip. I was going to Antigua!
