Pittsburgh\u2019s Captain Barnacle Blain is trading the helm of a Cruisin\u2019 Tiki hut for a small, self-renovated sailboat \u2014 and a steady job for a life of freedom.<\/p>\n
With his 401(k) emptied, he\u2019s setting out on a six-month journey of thousands of miles from the Three Rivers to the Florida Keys before making his way back north to Lake Erie, documenting the adventure along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trusting the flow,\u201d said the 49-year-old Oakmont resident and longtime Rhode Islander, born Blain Manol in Ellwood City. \u201cThe older I get, the more I can see the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
In front of Manol and the fully rehabbed 19-foot 1982 O\u2019Day Weekender, there stretches a twisting and branching solo journey of six months and thousands of miles. Christened \u201cR-2 Detour,\u201d the once-battered boat he\u2019ll pilot in October was a gift from a friend who\u2019d simply wanted it out of his mother\u2019s yard.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom here to Destin, Fla., it\u2019s 1,237 miles and I have to go through 33 locks,\u201d said Manol. \u201cAnd then I\u2019m going to hit the Intracoastal (Waterway), the Panhandle, and follow the Intracoastal all the way to the Florida Keys, spend the winter down the Keys and then come back up the East Coast in the spring and back into Lake Erie.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll stop in Nashville. All these cool little places that are on the river, I\u2019m gonna just check out. There\u2019s islands to be explored, bays and coves. It\u2019s endless. I\u2019m Tom Sawyerin\u2019 it, Huckleberry Finnin\u2019 it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behind Manol, however, is a lifetime of inspiration and skill.<\/p>\n
The captain\u2019s life has moved in concert with waterways ever since his father, Tom Manol, moved their family from Western Pennsylvania to Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island to take a job as a submarine welder when Blain was 8. There, he said, everybody had a boat or a sailboat \u2014 and learning to operate them was a rite of passage for him and his friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just it\u2019s a part of me. I\u2019m a fish. I\u2019m a fish out of water right now,\u201d said Manol. \u201cI\u2019ve always been drawn to that lifestyle because I grew up and lived it. \u2026 It came natural to me. It was just the flow of the ocean.\u201d <\/p>\n
As he worked on his boat on a recent Wednesday morning, the memories came flooding back.<\/p>\n
\u201c(I remember) racing sailboats with my father, exploring the islands and the bay with my friends, surfing Narragansett Town Beach and Point Judith at the lighthouses. I used to do a lot of that. Skiing up north in the winter times and surfing in the summers,\u201d he said. \u201cI was two blocks from the beach, so we all had moorings and sailboats and some sort of boat to go out and play on all summer long.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manol returned to Pittsburgh just under 30 years ago to be closer to his family, who had moved back to the area. In 2010, at the age of 55, his father died from cancer.<\/p>\n
Of sailing he said, \u201cIt was our thing.\u201d And the trip they dreamed up had been an extension of that passion.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad and I talked about it when I was growing up. My dad actually wanted to do it on a canoe to the Gulf, but that\u2019s a little crazy,\u201d he said. \u201c(It\u2019s the) adventure aspect of it, the freedom to disconnect, to be able to explore and take your time and have an adventure. Not a lot of people can do that or have the facilities to do that because everybody\u2019s got a mortgage, everybody\u2019s got kids. \u2026 It was a childhood dream of mine, and I don\u2019t have anything holding me back, so why not?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lately, his father\u2019s memory has been joined by thoughts of his uncle, who passed in August from a sudden heart attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe taught me to sail,\u201d said Manol. \u201cHe is a huge part of my story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manol, who was a bosun in the Navy, a commercial captain and a onetime merchant mariner, got his \u201cBarnacle\u201d nickname from a friend because \u201cYou meet me, I always stick around \u2026 good or bad,\u201d he added with a laugh.<\/p>\n
But these days, Manol is utilizing the $21,000 he found in a long-\u00adforgotten 401(k) account and funds from working odd jobs in nature and charter fishing tours and booze cruises to keep moving instead.<\/p>\n
For the past five years, he\u2019s been collecting essential supplies, gear and nonperishable food while sporadically working to get the boat in sailing order.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoatwise \u2014 like the hull and the deck, all that stuff \u2014 I had to reinforce a lot of things. It\u2019s from 1982, so it needed some love,\u201d said Manol. \u201cAnd I\u2019m finally at the stage right now where I\u2019m gonna install the electronics, the GPS. I\u2019m putting a new engine on it. Everything\u2019s brand new.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all coming together. It\u2019s weird how life works like that. When it\u2019s supposed to happen, it just happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll live by that mantra on the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no time frame. I have no plans at all whatsoever,\u201d said Manol. \u201cI\u2019m just gonna let the journey take its own form. That\u2019s the part of the adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n
In no small part, the wind and water will be his primary guides.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sailboat option is key, because fuel,\u201d said Manol. \u201cThe wind is free, so when I have the chance to use the sails, I\u2019m going to sail. When I have to use the engine, I\u2019ll use the engine.\u201d<\/p>\n