Names:  Richard and Salma Scott
Ages: 60 and 50+
Home: Victoria, Canada

We met the Scotts and their children, Nadia and Eran, in Guatemala at Mario’s Marina. 

Work:  Richard works for the Canadian Department of Agriculture

What makes them interesting?:  Every couple of years, Richard and Salma take advantage of Canada’s employee sabbatical program and rejoin their sailboat Callisto for cruising in the NW Caribbean.  Callisto is a most unusual boat.  Her form isn’t identifiable as that of a Catalina, Beneteau, Island Packet or some other well-known make.  In fact, she has a rather boxy look to her.  She doesn’t boast sleek fiberglass or polished teak.  Her hull is metal.  Everything about her seems unique.  All of which can be explained by the fact that she’s the Scott’s baby.  They built her from the bottom up.

In 1982, Richard and Salma moved to Victoria.  Richard’s father had died very suddenly from leukemia at age 62.  He left them two things - a beautiful house with solid wooden walls that he’d built for his retirement and a newfound determination to live their lives differently. 

Unemployed at the time, they flirted with the idea of returning to the Caribbean to do some development work.  They had met in 1972 when Richard joined CUSO (the Canadian equivalent of the Peace Corps) and taught biology and chemistry in the small town of Victoria, Grenada.  Salma, a native of the nearby island of Trinidad, had a cousin in Grenada who befriended Richard.  He set Richard up to meet Salma at a family wedding.  After courting for a year with once-a-month visits between Grenada and Trinidad, they married.

Instead of revisiting their Caribbean roots, Richard and Salma decided to pursue another dream – building a boat.  They were exposed to sailing in the Caribbean and for a decade had harbored the desire to travel by boat.  Richard had gathered information on all sorts of options – everything from cement boats to purchasing hulls and decks from California.  He finally decided on starting from scratch using steel.

Having grown up on a farm, Richard had some familiarity with welding.  His uncles had even patented welding machines.  But, he enrolled in night courses on welding and diesel mechanics to upgrade his skills.

Work on Callisto actually started in 1982.  For $500, Richard purchased a set of plans from Tom Colvin with 5 sheets of drawings and a table of offsets.  There were no details and he was left to figure out a lot on his own. 

It took eight years between Callisto’s conception and maiden voyage.  All of the work was done on a farm out from Victoria.  Richard built the keel out of 8000 pounds of lead.  He didn’t like the original design of the keel and lengthened it.  He changed the design of the bow and stern as well.  In order to drag the steel around and cut it, he used chains.  He constructed the mast and made a stainless steel boom from the scraps. 

During that time, the Scott’s two children were born.  In order to spend any quality time with Richard, the family would camp out at the farm to avoid dad disappearing to work on the boat.  Richard would carry the kids with him to junk yards, hardware stores and travel lifts.  Victoria’s huge boating community offered all of the raw materials and support Richard needed.

Callisto splashed into the water for the first time in 1990.  She was hardly finished.  Her interior furnishings consisted of a card table and chair.  Although she had a mast, there were no sails.  Her motor had been robbed from a tractor.  The Scott family spent a lot of time camping out in her Spartan surroundings, thoroughly enjoying Richard’s wondrous creation.

For the next eleven years, Richard continued to upfit Callisto as he could.  He had now taken the job with the Canadian government and Nadia and Aren were in school.  However, in 2001 the family emerged from the shock of 9/11 with a universal epiphany.  If they were ever going to explore the seas with Callisto, now was the time to do it.

They determined to leave Victoria in 2002 with Trinidad as their destination.  Canada offers year-long unpaid absences for its employees with a guarantee of the job upon the return.  Nadia had already completed high school.  Aren was in the eleventh grade and he negotiated with his school to complete his work through correspondence. 

The family pitched in to get Callisto ready for blue water sailing.  Salma focused on provisioning long term for four people.  Early in 2002, they departed Victoria and headed down the coast of western Canada and the U.S.

Callisto made it to El Salvador before her self-steering mechanism broke.  Time eventually ran out and the Scotts returned to Canada for three years.  Nadia started her studies at the university.  Aren continued in high school.

In 2006, they returned to El Salvador, hauled Callisto out and made the necessary repairs to her for a crossing through the Panama Canal and into the Atlantic.  Once through the canal, they waited in Colon for winds to make the passage to the island of Providencia off of Colombia’s coast.  They headed north to the Vive Rios and came into the Honduran Bay island of Guanaja at night with Aren and Nadia shining flashlights from the bow of the boat for navigation. 

By the start of hurricane season at the beginning of June, Callisto found herself at Mario’s Marina in the Rio Dulce of Guatemala, which has been her home since then.

What they taught us:  When we talked to the Scotts, we were fascinated by their story.  We were interested in how they managed as a family living on a sailboat for such an extended period of time, particularly Nadia and Aren.

They explained that the process of building the boat in many ways prepared them for actually having her as their home.  The camping out on the farm and on Callisto helped them get accustomed to “roughing” it. 

The advent of the internet, emailing, msm messenger and Facebook eleviated communication concerns for the kids. 

“Just as long as the shower works, we’re okay,” Nadia confessed.

Actually, their familiarity with each other helped them in crewing Callisto.  They didn’t have to get to know other people and become accustomed to foreign ways of doing.

Philosophy of Life: 

Salma:  “Live as simply as possible.”
Richard:  “Family is the most important thing.  I want to cram as much as I can into this life before the Big Guy calls me up.”
Nadia:  “Be a free spirit – especially an eco-spirit.”
Aren:  Doesn’t really have a philosophy formulated yet.  Maybe he’s waiting for a few more adventures aboard Callisto before finalizing it.