Funny Characters

"Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open." - Elmer G. Letterman

By Craig Boyer

Traveling by boat for a year opens the door to witness a great number of characters, good and bad.  We traveled over 8000 miles at an average speed of 6 knots.  This leisurely pace allowed us to observe and sometimes meet some unusual people along the way.  We didn't always have a camera handy but when we did, we captured the encounter.  Here is a small sampling of the characters we saw and/or met along the way.

Our first stop was in Rhode Island where we met wonderful people and made life long friends.  We loved Rhode Island and quickly understood why it was so popular with the rich and famous, but who knew it was an intergalactic destination.  I was truly star struck when I saw Boba Fett and his buddy vacationing in Newport.  I tried to talk to them, but they scootered off faster than a X-34 Landspeeder.

While in NYC I saw this guy.  Maybe this handsome coif has some cultural significance, but it looked like he was growing a giant ball of yarn on his head.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to meet this chap either to discuss his style as we had hungry kids pulling us down towards the hot dog stand. 

Time square has its share of hustlers.  At least this guy was honest!

The girls spotted this guy hanging out in the park while sharpening his “pet” chicken’s spurs when we were in Spanish Town, BVI.  He has a cool style too, I especially love the white cape.  Later we had to have a talk with the girls about befriending strangers in the park armed with a knife and a killer chicken.

Guys down in the caribbean dig nicknames.  We met quite a few characters with colorful names like
First Blood,  Hash Doctor, Assassin,  Big Pappa and Cobra.  All were way freindlier than their names implied. While in Dominica we met Stuff.  Yes, his name is really Stuff!  Or at least that's what he and everyone else called him.  Stuff was always asking us for money.   Turns out that Stuff is the friendliest homeless drug addict in the world.  He always had a smile even when everyone told him to get lost.  Somewhere along the line we wised up and started giving Stuff money when he provided a service like getting us fruit, which he happily did.  Here, I told him I’d pay him $5.00 EC ($2 USD) if he posed in a picture with me.  I have no idea what he is holding, but he is pretty proud of it.

On the creepier side was Ross.  We should have known he was trouble by the lack of a killer nickname.  He loved to dance with women, especially American women.  We first met Ross at reggae night where he demonstrated his dancing steps with a child's barrette in his beard.  Wendy had to be saved several times from the clutches of Ross.  He was so happy to see us at the Carnival kick off party that he attached himself to our little posse.  It was sort of cool until he started pulling the girls by the arm into the crowd and became a little territorial.  That's when we had to kick Ross off of the fun wagon rather sternly.

 Last but not least, we found Gandhi on his cell phone in St Lucia.