I grew up by the sea close to the tip of Kent in SE England - the point that reaches out to the continent - in a place called Minnis Bay.
The clifftop was about 100 yards from our front gate and, looking back, the sea played a major part in my life, then through my role as RainbowChaser (volunteer Admin) at Sailonline, it did so again.
Childhood seaside memories are of swimming and learning to respect the tides and currents of that part of the Thames Estuary, watching yacht races, excavating pre-Bronze Age burial pits on the beach with Toni Powell-Cotton (I believe you can still see some of the finds in the Powell-Cotton Museum at Quex Park), cycling between the marshes and the sea, picnics at the beach-hut and... lots of sunshine!
For just over a decade, from 2010 to 2021/2 I spent a lot of time helping to manage virtual racing on Sailonline.org as well as creating buddy-ups between the virtual world of Sailonline and every kind of real-world sailing activity with local yacht clubs around the world as well as, for example, the Tall Ships Races!
Through Jubilant's Fastnet Campaign 2013 the crew and I raised funds for The Cure Parkinson's Trust and the RNLI and by sending #RCtheParrot to Jubilant for the Fastnet race I felt very included. When your world shrinks due to illness and/or disability it is easy to feel and actually be very disconnected from the busy-ness of the world of work and recreation. For a brief period I thought #RCTheParrot might act as a vehicle for fundraising and even, somehow, empower those with movement disorders, not just me, but as my own medical issues crowded in it was an impossibility (plus, of course, there are already many wonderful ways to raise funds for any/all worthwhile charities!).
I still don't get out - but the world of the internet and streaming brings pretty much everything to one's screen(s), and, oddly enough, the wider use of online for meetings/concerts etc during the early years of the Covid pandemic, meant for a brief while, I could engage with a far wider range of events!
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