In Venice, a Young Boatman Steers a Course of His Own
A man in a mauve polo shirt and white jeans is sailing from San Antonio to San Diego with a young girl in a pink cotton dress.
He’s not alone.
His boat mates — eight to 10 men and women in all ages from their 20s to their 70s — have gathered to him on the water’s edge so that he can show them the sights of San Diego, and San Diego’s downtown. He’s their guide.
They’re a motley crew. Some are in their early 20s, and some are in their 70s. Some look very much like they’re homeless. Some are wealthy, some are not. One woman is so stunningly beautiful, I thought she was in the wrong boat. Another, dressed in a full-length brown wig and black tights, is wearing a red shirt. I kept looking at her so much, I wondered if she was a sex object or a pirate.
The group is a study in contrasts, a motley crew of San Diego natives, mostly Latino and a few young whites, who are sailing around the world with one another.
They’ve been going with one another for roughly two years. When they arrived in Los Angeles from their hometowns of Los Cabos, Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona, they met. “We met and got to know each other, and we became friends,” says Juan Pablo, the boat’s driver.
The couple met in Mexico, where they lived and where they met.
“We had decided to stay in Mexico because of the weather there,” Pedro tells me. “We knew that there would be a better opportunity of meeting people here in San Diego.”
I couldn’t believe they were making a trip across the Atlantic Ocean, but they were, in spite of the weather, to meet people. At least that was the plan.
They had come to San Diego expecting to live in the Bay Area — but that’s not happening any more. They’ve been rowing across the Pacific on the same boat for two years. They’ve been living together in a small cabin in Mexico, and then they’ve been living in an apartment in San Diego, rowing across the
