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Hi there folks and Greetings from New Brunswick, Canada.(We butt up against Maine so there isn’t just a Big Hole across the border as some may think.)
And... Here’s a not-so-tall-tale that truly happened a year or so ago.
Awhile back, I couldn’t think of anything "constructive" to doat home, so I decided to wander down to my forty-five foot houseboat "ALOSA"and just "putter" for a bit. Nothing really HAD TO be done, but away I went.
The marina is about 30 miles from home and after puttering around on the boat for awhile, I decided to go for a stroll to the "lower end" of the marina.
I’ve only been down to that end of the dock once in two years as I normally just head for MY berth, flash up the engines and cast-off.
 Alosa Homebuilt Housebpat
I told him I had rented the same boat he was on for a week, many years earlier and enjoyed the experience so much that I retired, moved 300 miles to get "here", bought the "flagship" from the rental company, spent two years rebuilding it and blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Eventually, the visitor asked if I lived nearby and I told him I lived in Fredericton, about 30 miles upstream and after some more questions, he asked if it was a big city and did I know a chap, named Emery, who owned a houseboat in "that Fredericton area". I allowed as how I did know Emery (who is fine feller)(haha) and asked why he was looking for him. (He still didn’t know who I was).
It turns out, this chap had come across me in a chatroom on the Internet, with a chap in California, during the previous winter. I apparently had told the Californian all about my "thrills" involved with houseboating on the Saint John River here, and had included the name and number of the rental company, in one public message.
The "visitor" then told me that this "Emery" had painted such a glowing word picture of life along the Saint John River, that he had called the houseboat rentalcompany earlier in the Spring from... SWITZERLAND and reserved a boat for that week. Then he, his wife and daughter flew over here, 3,000+ miles, just to go boating on this wonderful Saint John River, based on this "Emery’s" commentary to a "Third Party". Now, before returning to Switzerland... he wanted to call "Emery" and tell him who he was, etc. and to to say Thanks for turning him into a houseboating fanatic. He nearly fell overboard when I told him who I was.
Then... after a "brew" (coffee, of course), he was getting ready to depart, but his engine wouldn’t start. I couldn’t get it going either but did find the problem and I called the rental owners (who I had purchased my boat from years earlier) who brought up a new battery an hour later.
When the owner of the boat arrived, he just happened to have a guy with him who looked familiar to me but I couldn’t quite place the face.
He turned out to be "Old George", who had designed and actually built my houseboat back in 1986/87. George had heard about but not seen, how I had rebuilt and changed "his" houseboat since my purchase and he started to tell me that if he had it to do again, he would do... (everything that I had just changed in the past two years), like... extend the fore and after deck, bigger engine and a "one piece" EDPM rubber roof, etc.
I walked with George down the dock to my boat and he actually had tears in his eyes. George is about 78 years old now and he got quite emotional when he saw the changes that I had made, which is exactly what he had
wanted to do, if he’d had more time, more youth and more money originally.
If I hadn’t been on the Internet that day...
If I hadn’t been in THAT chatroom...
If I hadn’t been a houseboater...
If I hadn’t gone down to the marina...
If I hadn’t walked down to the Lower end...
If I hadn’t stopped to chat...
If his battery hadn’t died...
If...
Talk about a small world and all this, in just one day,
because I just "happened" to go down there, for no real reason.
Cheers,
Emery, In New Brunswick
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