The Money Tree Magazine 1st Issue | Page 64

lifestyle HAVE SAILING LICENSE, will travel by charl du plessis South Africa’s big wave surfer and 2010 Mavericks champion, Chris Bertish, recently explained in an interview with a famous men’s magazine how he used his sailing skills to get around the world and to earn the money that he needed for his surfing exploits. Now, admittedly, Chris grew up in a sailing familywith his dad having built the first catamaran in Cape Town (Chris recalls how, in those early days, people would ask why his dad had two yachts stuck to one another). Chris virtually learned to sail and walk at the same time. Years later, once he finished school at Rondebosch Boys High School, he confidently skipped abroad armed with his sailing skills and determined to compete and to earn. Time abroad post-school or post-varsity is an important rite of passage. The more so if you consider that longevity forecasts for today’s 20-somethings suggest they may live to over 100 years old and may, therefore, have to work up to a mandatory retirement age of 75 or 80. With that long of a working life ahead, it makes all the more sense to take a few years off to travel and experience the world while you are still young and beautiful. Your parents’ generation had their own rites, too, and they likely backpacked around Europe with a passport filled with tough-to-get visas due to the Apartheid-laden stigma South Africa carried at the time. Then, post-Madiba’s release, when 62 our own continent finally welcomed us, the overland, Driftersstyle tour guide jobs become de rigueur. What a tough job guiding 20 scared blonde Scandinavian beauties through hostile terrain! After the Commonwealth invited us back in and offered our under 26s special working permits, London housed more South Africans than what one Mrs Balls Chutney factory could handle. We once spent a week in London where a “Seffie” served every meal we had. But, then came corrupt Home Affairs and 9/11 fears, and suddenly the SA passport and the youthful London segue was no longer that easy. Enter the world of the skipper’s license, obtainable regardless of whether you grew up in the Namib desert or on the water like Bertish above. All one needs is a good sailing school, of which there are several in both Durban and the Cape. We first found out about this super-cool work and lifestyle option in a truly bizarre fashion. A few years ago, walking around Monaco’s harbour, and gawking at some of the world’s m