THE ORIGIN OF TI LOK
I wrote the following in early 2000—see the footnote for an update:
It was many years ago—in the 1970s, as I recall—but I was already dreaming of a boat capable of extended cruising. I was in a bar in Bangkok, Thailand, and was approached by an attractive young lady. After several minutes of idle chitchat, she cut to the chase: “Do you want me to be your ti lok [tee lock]?”
At the helm of Ti Lok, about 2003
“What’s a ti lok?” I replied.
“A ti lok is a girlfriend,” she said.
“I already have one” I noted, referring to my wife of over 15 years (now 37 years and counting).
“Does she have a house? A good ti lok always has a house.” she explained.
Inspiration, at that moment, in a bar in Bangkok. What could be a more appropriate name for a live-aboard boat than that? The boat didn’t materialize for nearly 25 years, but the name was never far from my mind. If you’re cruising the waters of South Florida or, hopefully within the next few years, somewhere along the Intracostal Waterway, watch for the trawler Ti Lok, my “girlfriend with a house.”
Update:
It’s 2008, and I still have both Ti Lok and my wife, now 46 years and counting. We’ve made two 5-month trips up the Intracostal waterway, the first in 2003 to Washington D.C. and the Chesapeake Bay and the second, in 2005, to the Chesapeake, New York City for a month, and the Erie Canal. We’ve also made many shorter trips, most of them for two to six weeks up and down the coast from Key West to Georgia.
