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Meet
The Crew
Variously English,
American, Australian or Canadian—we're quite the
international potpourri! For each of us, sailing is a
central part of our lives, a deliberately chosen path
away from the mainstream. We love it and we love to share
it with others too. (And perhaps we can entice a few more
folks away from the "rat-race" and add more
notches to our mast...:>)
Skipper
Di— also affectionately known by those who sail
in her Aegean realm as "The Goddess Diana,"
or "Mother Hen"!
After completing a degree in Psychology at Sussex University
(UK), she spent her early years vascillating between boat-bumming
and the software industry. An increasing gathering of
potential sailors wanting to join her trips to Greece
inspired her to take the plunge and buy our first boat
"Vassilis" - and so SeaScape was born!
Her long-held
belief in a down-to-earth, "no-glossy-brochure-speak"
approach came into it's own even more with the advent
of the internet and mobile communications. With the dubious
honour of being amongst the first to purchase a cellphone
modem in Greece (getting it working was another matter!)
- she finally realised her vision of being able to communicate
directly and personally with potential sailors - straight
from the boat(s) to your home/office.
Whenever she's
not actually at the helm of her first "baby",
Vassilis - she can usually be found attached at the hip
to her laptop, still eternally online!
Greece and
Turkey are now well-established, but Diane's itchy-feet
syndrome hasn't abated— she continues to head up
new sailing explorations, including recent adventures
in Thailand and Tonga. Who knows where in the world she'll
go next?
 Cap'n
Ray, one of our engineers-run-away-to-sea; or perhaps
he is regressing, as he started his teenage years as a
marineengineer trainee. From the age of 12, he was sailing
on clinker built cutters and whalers in the UK; shortly
afterwards, heading across the oceans as an engineer on
super-tankers. A varied career has followed, including
skippering flotillas for a certain well-known competitor,
leading teams of young people on volunteer missions overseas...
and his latest endeavors in heading up a team developing
new technology lasers for eye surgery in Australia.
As our technical
manager, Ray is responsible for all our little fleet;
ie, if it doesn't work, it's his problem! When asked to
write some of his own bio, he claims that he is a "quiet
and insular character who likes to get to bed early; not
keen on socialising but will do so when necessary".
If you sail on his boat, you'll soon learn not to take
a single word he says seriously...
 Pirate
Matt and First Mate Jill - Matthew grew up in Plymouth
(UK) with salt water already in his veins, graduating
fromuniversity with degrees in Oceanography, Marine Biology
and Marine Environmental Protection. However, a few years
as a research scientist made him realise that a life ON
the ocean waves was infinitely preferable to just studying
them - and sailed off over the blue horizon !
Several years
and countries later, Matthew is the person to talk to
if you're dreaming of cruising the world - he can tell
you tall tales of the high seas from all over the world's
oceans! On shore, there's also his grand reportoire of
salty sea-dog yarns... (why is it no-one ever believes
a word of what our skippers tell them ?? :>)
However, the
real "boss lady" on AnnaMaria of course, is
Jill - who nabbed our pirate Matt on one of his expeditions
to New Zealand. If we think we have a grand mixture of
nationalities between the crew, Jill beats us all with
utch, Indonesian, English and a whole melay of other exotic,
explorer blood lines! No wonder she is such a traveller
herself; and such a great, easy-going, fun-loving first
mate and hostess on AnnaMaria!
Phil— one of the more mature members of our
team (it's ok to call a guy "mature", right??)
- though at heart, as much a  Peter
Pan as the rest of us! Someone has to keep an eye on the
kids, and Phil does a great job!
"Retired"
early, Phil now trades time between his house rental/renovation
business in England and sailing the oceans. His "real"
sailing jobs are delivering boats across oceans; then
he comes to play with us in Greece for a couple of months
every summer!
So if you're
a super-keen (or wannabe) sailor, "get 'em up Phil"
(the sails !!) is the man to sail with; given the company
of other yachts in the immediate proximity, he'll have
a racing crew trained out of total landlubbers in minutes
!
Cap'n David—the
Welsh ingredient in our multi-national pot-pourri ! David
originally sailed his way into our Dodecanese realm, having
just delivered a yacht all the way from Thailand. As a
civil engineer, David was taking time out from building
airports. But when we discovered that his galley skills
were just as good as his engineering & sailing skills,
there was no waywe could let him go home! He brings to
our fleet a calm, easy-going confidence borne of expertise,
a natural inclination to share his knowledge and love
of the sea with others - and a very wicked Welsh sense
of humour!
If you're lucky
enough to end up on his boat, bring him exotic spices
and a Welsh dragon to remind him of the homeland we dragged
him away from, and you'll never get bilge-cleaning duty
!
Carole— here's the face to the very-English
accent often at the end of the phone when you call us
in Seattle! A former ER nurse turned executive assistant
from the lovely island of Guernsey (UK), she had already
sailed in Greece and Turkey and had fallen in love with
the area several years before she joined a SeaScape trip.
Carole has been running our admin base in Seattle with
traditional medical-like efficiency for six years now!
Whenever possible,
she still escapes the grey skies of Seattle to come sailing
with us in Greece and Turkey - always hoping one day to
trade the indoor office for the sailing one!
Judy—
another of our team who had enough of the 9-to-5, she
retired from her life as a telecommunications manager
a few years ago, and now has much more time to spend on
one of her main passions in life - travel !
It was the
travel bug which brought her out to Greece 7yrs ago, to
join one of our shareboat trips; since then, she and her
husband have enticed several boatloads of other friends
to return and sail with us! As she was doing such a great
job for us anyway! - we also enticed Judy to help out
"officially" at times. So now part of the SeaScape
Team also, you may well speak to Judy if you call or email
us... she will talk you into doing her own favourite spots
in Turkey, whilst Carole loves Greece best; and Diane
will have you sailing who-knows-where-next in the world
! :)
Robert—our Australian accountant and business
manager, keeps us afloat financially. Not your ordinary
accountant, Robertsold out of his high-pressure city partnership
some years ago, preferring a more balanced life of private
practice and spending as much time as possible afloat
- whether on his own yacht in Sydney, the SeaScape yachts
in Greece/Turkey, or sometimes running our winter expeditions
to the Whitsundays, New Zealand, the Seychelles, and recently
Thailand too !
His other passion
in life is the piano; Mr Cool Entertainer has been known
to amaze our sailboat neighbours many a time by setting
up a mobile "Piano Bar" actually on board! Have
Piano, Will Travel - not a bad motto! Teaching non-aussies
how to say "G'day Mate!" properly is another
of his hobbies...
Besides running
the SeaScape finances, Robert also looks after our Sydney
base; so if you are also DownUnder, you can call up and
talk to him directly about our trips!
Care
to join us, and run away to sea too??
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