New Crew Member

Severance has a new crew member...Armando Fontenele (late 30's from Brazil).

We met in Bermuda when he was crew on another boat. He crewed to Norway and then made his way here just before Eric departed.

He speaks English, Portugese, Spanish, Italian and (although he claims otherwise) a bit of French.

I've given him the task of teaching me Spanish, I hope he's up to the task!

Armando is making a major career change from being a university instructor in hotel management to becoming a licensed captain...his goal is to captain a large sailboat.

He is preparing to get his Yachtmasters certification, which is a universally recognized course of study administered by the British (similar to some US Coast Guard certification).

And, he's convinced me to give it a go also (puts some pressure on me as I could end up with crew that can prove they should be the captain instead of me!).

So, for the next weeks our priority will be to prepare for the certification process. There is no written test, an examiner goes out with you on a boat (we can use our own...a good thing), has you demonstrate proficiency and does oral examinations underway.

It is possible to hire an instructor for a few days to prepare, I'm hopeful they will have more success with me than others that have tried and failed in the past!

We plan to take the test in the UK sometime in late August, most likely heading there after a trip up the French side of the channel.

If I get it, I will put something in the blog, if Armando is the only one to pass do not expect to read about it!

(Written by Scott; Posted by Diane for Scott)