Captain Blaine’s Blog

Perhaps this is a good place to insert an introduction for those of you stopping by for the first time.  My name is Blaine Parks and I’ve had the great pleasure of leading a fairly charmed life filled with adventure, travel, thrills and my fair share of spills to match.  

Today – in this phase of my life – I find myself living the role of a professional yacht delivery captain.  In short – I move sail and motor yachts all over the world for owners who need their boats moved to a new location.  Most of my work happens along the US East Coast, Bahamas and Caribbean.  But I have also spent 43 days crossing the Atlantic in a 32′ sailboat with one of my clients (see S/V Gemima’s Trans-Atlantic Voyage), so you never know what ocean adventure may pop up next.

Prior to falling into the yacht delivery business, I spent some time in the US military (Air Force) where my adventure chasing always began by getting pushed out of some type of aircraft with an over-loaded rucksack, a parachute packed by others and a note from Uncle Sam that said ‘Good Luck’.  I guess that was where I learned to trust – Or maybe I just thought I was invincible.  Then I went off to University, got derailed for a few years in Corporate America, finished my degree and began my career in the Corporate Security field in earnest.  I was good at my job, promoted often and was on the fast track to success — when I decided to quit and go sailing.

For nearly five years, I sailed all over the eastern US, Canada and Bahamas with my ex-wife and our two Golden Retrievers, Max & Bailey (R.I.P).  It was as magical as anything you can dream up in your minds.  But 25,000 nautical miles later, I was ready for my next adventure : a 218-day, 48-state motorcycle ride on two Harley-Davidson’s with two sidecars (for Max & Bailey).  The entire journey was part of a charity effort we started to help raise money and educate people about the benefit of Assistance Dogs to people living with disabilities.  It was another amazing experience filled with hard work, rich rewards and emotional highs & lows that I may never know again.  And – it helped a lot of people along the way.

Of course, every silver-lining story has a rip in its tapestry.  Mine came when I invested and partnered with my brother in a family business.   I won’t bore you with the details, but the short version is that as soon as I looked away - the money was gone and my brother was the culprit.  The financial losses, legal battles and bitterness slowed me down for almost two years and probably didn’t help with my failing marriage -which ultimately did fail.  But I’ve always been a ‘bounce-back’ kind of guy, so I shook off the emotional debris and started a yacht maintenance and delivery business.

I still do a small amount of yacht repair business when I’m ashore, but most of my work is at sea – delivering yachts from port to port.  Most of these pages are now dedicated to the tales from those adventures with an occassional unrelated story just to keep you on your toes.

And throughout all of my adult life experiences, I’ve taken a few moments here and there to capture the adventures with words, photos and other forms of media to share with my family and friends.  With the advent of web pages and, now, blogs – I can share with an even wider audience in an effort to encourage everyone – young and old – to get out there and really chase their dreams.

My writing is informal, but I make an effort to keep it clean and mostly error free.  I’ve written for several magazines, newsletters and various other professional outlets over the years.   I have a passion for story-telling filled with humor – mostly at my expense – and am often told that I give readers a sense of being right there in the middle of the action.  If that’s true, then I owe it all to one man who showed me that words – and stories told with a real passion – could transport people to places, both real and imaginary.

That man was Bill Graham – my 9th Grade English Teacher – who stepped onto his desk one day, stared down at his students and spent the next 55 minutes acting out parts of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with a passion, a violence and an animated manner that held 30 raging-hormonal teenagers in awe for the entire duration.  I was hooked on writing and have tried to recreate the magic of Mr. Graham’s passion in all of my writing.  I’m sure I let him down in many ways, but I continue to try harder with each and every story I tell.  Unfortunately, I never got the chance to thank him.

I should also thank my good friend Jay for setting up and encouraging me to develop this site.  He has been a mentor of sorts in my life over the last 25 plus years and I have gone off chasing several adventures because of his quiet and sarcastic encouragement to do so.  My life and my stories are richer because of him.

And finally – one short note to my trans-Atlantic friend and client, Andrew Duncan.  This site is to prove that not all my stories begin with, “Well, I met this girl in a bar…”

Enjoy your time here and I promise to make your visits to my blog as comfortable as a storm at sea under a star-filled sky.

Cap’n Blaine