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Marie-Claude Landry and Andre Blain of Dancing Lizard have been dreaming of sailing off for years. They are not unlike many other Caribbean 1500 participants this year, but their story perhaps best traces the path from dream to reality.
The couple hails from French Canada, and once upon a time shared an apartment in Montreal. They have since moved onto the boat full-time, but made the mistake of renting their apartment out a year too early. “It’s funny, actually, our initial plan was to leave a year ago, so we rented the apartment,” Marie-Claude mentioned, while waiting for Andre to return from an early morning photo expedition at Hampton Public Piers. And they rented everything in it, from bath towels and bed sheets to the silverware. They were left high and dry, the boat not ready to go and no place to live. But they’re adventurous types, and took it all in stride. Marie-Claude thought, “Oh my god, we rented our place!” But in the next instant she switched into action-mode, and decided, “okay, we have to find another place.” And they did.
“When we got the boat, and we realized the sheer amount of stuff that needed to be done, we said ‘no, we can’t leave, no way.’ So I called the office, said ‘forget it, I’m not going on sabbatical!’” Marie-Claude works as a finance director for the YMCA, a “professional fundraiser.” She has a deal in place with her office to leave on sabbatical for a year (this year, now the boat is ready), with the option to extend that if they so desire. But she’s confident that the fundraising world will need her services somewhere if she decides to leave for good. Andre is a semi-retired engineer, and is able to work from afar, which gives them the flexibility to cruise in style and comfort.
This attitude – that of leaving home ‘for as long as we feel like it’ is one shared by many cruising folk, rally participants and those that go it alone alike. Modern communications technology makes it possible for people like Andre to keep in touch. For others, once the decision to go has been made, everything else seems to fall in place.
But it was a long road for Andre and Marie-Claude, and they each left past lives to end up where they are today. “Andre sailed a lot when he was young,” Marie-Claude said, spending time on the water as a teenager. “I started sailing again maybe twelve or thirteen years ago,” she continued. Andre interrupted to give his side of the story, and it quickly became apparent that they are both dreamers. But they are doers even moreso. “Twice in my life I said ‘I’m going to get that boat,’” Andre declared. The first was a blue-hulled C&C 38. He got that boat, but there was always something else lingering on the horizon. “Someday I would cast off and go somewhere, around the world, or far on the ocean, but I would do it most likely on a Moody,” he continued.
Andre kept that dream in mind all the while. He met Marie-Claude three years ago. They were both fresh off other relationships, but formed a common bond around the sailing dream. After dating for only a month, Andre rather boldly put Marie-Claude on the spot. “We were in Newport for the weekend, looking actually at a Moody, and I remember very well, we were taking a walk on the dock, and he turned around and looked at me and he said, ‘Marie-Claude, if one day I want to take off, are you coming with me?’ Well, here we are, three years later!” Marie-Claude said.
Dancing Lizard, the Moody 46 that they finally ended up with, was for Andre a search seven years in the making, beginning before he even met Marie-Claude. He first laid eyes on a Moody years ago in the Mediterranean, and that thought kept him going. At 6-foot 3-inches, his choices were fairly limited. The 40 was far too small – “I had to go sideways through the openings,” Andre said – and the 54 was out of reach financially. “The 46 was really the boat,” Andre says. Finally, they made it happen.
Now, after what Andre says was “45 years of dreaming, expectations, and dreaming of the right boat,” they are taking off on the Caribbean 1500. An Atlantic crossing is not out of the question next year – Andre perked up when he heard some details of ARC Europe – and they will take things day by day.
They inadvertently entered the ‘cruising class’ in the 1500 – which, thanks to a technicality is actually the quasi-competitive class – but are excited to see how they will fair compared to other boats. “We’ll take it more in a less-competitive way, but it will be fun to at least know what you get,” Marie-Claude offered. But, Andre quickly added, if they catch a fish “we’re going to stop!”
After a lifetime of dreaming, years of searching and a longer than anticipated refit, Andre, Marie-Claude and Dancing Lizard are ready to head to sea. For the couple, and the rest of the fleet, the world awaits.
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