Not “professional” maritime related but an inspiring read. From the linked article below.
“With no formal training—just courage, curiosity, and a whole lot of heart — Oliver set sail from Oregon in search of something deeper,” Green said in an Instagram post. “His journey reminds us of the voyaging spirit that lives in all of us: the drive to explore, to grow, and to trust the ocean.”
Btw, that is a nice quote about Mr. Widger but the last word about “trusting the ocean” can only be said by someone with very little sailing experience. Respect it, fear it, love it or hate it, but only trust the ocean to be untrustworthy. It doesn’t care about us nor worries about maintaining trust.
“The sea is selective, slow at recognition of effort and aptitude but fast in the sinking of the unfit.”
I remember meeting a man about 20 years ago named Nicky who left his position as an executive with PBS to join K-Sea as an OS. His goal was to get his license and to this day I wonder if he ever did it and stayed on with Kirby.
I was around at K-Sea 16-19 years ago, remember several interesting characters, stay in touch with a couple but never ran across an OS Nicky though. I have a captain friend who early retired in '16 - '17. His dream was to take his retirement money to open a coffee shop. He wisely took a job at a coffee shop for about 6 months instead & got the idea out of his head. Getting an OS job, being paid & sailing across the Pacific Ocean under the command of an experienced Master & CE sounds a lot better than buying a sailboat for $50k, watching some YouTube videos & sailing off into the sunset. But if Mr. Widger & his cat can keep building up followers on social media, and doesn’t kill himself, he might come out making more money than an OS or even a captain?
This is my thought exactly when reading this story, because now what? keep sailing and hope you can make influencer money? where’s the plan in that?
I can sell all my possessions and buy a van to drive around the country, but when I ran this plan by my dad, he said “that’s just being homeless with extra steps.”
This is a great story of escapism for a lot of folks, like Jimmy Buffet’s storytelling. And it he can make it work for him, hell yeah. But I feel like his story line is the same most of the bums in Key West.
Buffet was a BS artist. He was sailing his own boat on music royalties claiming to be a vagabond. He was a marketing genius though. Even after becoming a billionaire he projected the same persona on stage but he was anything but a regular guy. When a friend of mine who had a lawn maintenance company in Palm Beach ran out of ice water for his workers while working at Buffet’s house he asked Buffet if he had any ice he could spare. Buffet told him to tell them to drink outta the hose. That is but one example of the nouveau rich guy from Mobile.
Several years ago there was a young fellow pushing a shopping cart through my home town, crossing America with a large social media following. The guy wasn’t a veteran nor did he have a noble cause that he was sponsoring or trying to bring attention to. He just had a large social media presence & wanted to push a shopping cart coast to coast. A neighbor of mine made the comment that the famous, homeless buggie pusher was, “Useless”. My reply to him was, “Not everyone wants to be used.” I think we both were right. Probably the same for this workforce dropout & his cat.
He was great at selling the dream, Escapism sells and that’s why I think this story gets traction. Folks who have never left Ohio for more than two weeks at a time, working behind the front desk of a dentist office eat this shit up. Seeing how the Margaritaville brand has blown up since his passing makes me wonder if he was keeping it toned down behind the scenes.
It’s a dissertation for another time, but I can make a pretty good argument that Pitbull and Jimmy buffet in the same Genera - Selling the Florida Dream.
Couldn’t agree more. Life is too short to care that much about how other folks are doing their life. If you can make ends meet sailing around the world or pushing a shopping cart and posting tiktoks, more power to you. Good on him for doing something to change his situation.
As Jimmy said,
Life is just too short for some folks
For other folks, it just drags on
Some folks like the taste of smoky whiskey
Others figure tea is too strong
This would have been around 2004. He said he was on the Adriatic Sea with Capt. Simmons, who I was told by a SUNY instructor who used to do the radar recerts for a lot of their guys passed away a long time ago.
K Simmons was one of the charismatic people who was easy to remember working with, a great guy. But I didn’t show up until '07 so the OS might of moved up or out by then? I worked for Kenny for a very short time but our barge didn’t match up with the Adriatic so it was only temporary when he was filling in for our Capt who was stuck somewhere else.
Only other K-Sea character I met through a friend was Bill Morrissey. I didn’t even work there and I wanted to punch him in the face within five minutes of him opening his mouth.