Guest post by author Victoria Allman.

I’ve taken the advice of write what you know to heart. In Sea Fare, I write about my life as a yacht chef. For the past 12 years, I have been surrounded by water. I work on it. I live on it. Water has been my whole life since I accepted my first job.

And that is what I write about, life on the boat. I write what I observe. Such as, one day last year, a pain-in-the-ass guest onboard wanted to go jet-skiing. Here’s how it went:

“Ready?” the man bellowed from the aft deck. He had just emerged from his cabin, wearing baby blue swim shorts with pink paisley swirls. His stomach folded over the waistband and stuck out of the orange and yellow aloha shirt that screamed tourist trying too hard.

I held a lifejacket out for him. He strode right past it.

“Um, Sir.” Patrick, the captain grabbed the jacket out of my hand and held it out for the man. “It’s law that you wear a PFD.”

Like Vanna White revealing the games letters, the man waved his hand. “See any cops?”

“Still, I would feel more comfortable…” Patrick began.

The man snatched the preserver out of my hands. “Geeze. Some fun vacation this is.” He lifted the lid of the seat, shoved the jacket in, and slammed the lid shut. “There, happy now?”

Patrick smiled through gritted teeth as he reached down to untie the ski from the cleat. He held the line in his hand while the man stepped onboard. It sank low in the water. “See ya.” He roared off, ripping the line out of Patrick’s hand.

“Watch the line!” Patrick shouted. “It will tangle in the shaft.”

The man was already 50 feet away when he cut the engine and reached forward for the line. We watched helplessly as the ski shifted under his weight and like a Bozo Bop Bag, tipped the man off and into the water before popping up again. He splashed headfirst over the handlebars and was instantly submerged in the warm salty water. I couldn’t help but laugh.

He came up sputtering and cursing a few feet from the ski. His long, normally slicked back hair hung in his eyes. He clung to the side of the ski and whipped his head around.

“Are you okay?” Patrick shouted across the water.

The man kept searching the water wildly as he struggled to get up on the ski. “What’s in the water?” He squealed like a little girl. “Are there sharks in this water?” He spun around in a circle, gyrating like a washing machine. “What was that?”

“Don’t panic.” Patrick shouted. “You’re okay.”

The man pulled himself half way up on the ski before it flipped again sending him back into the water. Expletives carried over the water.

“Hang on, I’m coming” Patrick called. He climbed into the tender to perform a daring sea rescue, in fifteen feet of calm idyllic water, 100 yards from shore. He covered the distance to the man in no time and cut the engine of the dingy. Patrick leaned over the side and grabbed the rope in one hand while steadying the ski with the other. With the help of the dingy to hold onto, the man scrambled up and onto the ski still cursing.

Again, he snatched the rope out of Patrick’s hand and sped off, this time with the rope in his hand instead of dangling in the water. I heard no thank you uttered. It was just another service we offered.

This happened within a 10-minute span of time. Patrick and I laughed about it. He dismissed the incident and immediately went back to work, but I went straight to my computer and started typing. The offensive guard of a man came to life on the screen, instantly becoming a character. As the day went on, each time I saw the man a new scene was created. By the end of the trip, I had enough material for the first four chapters of my new book.

By living and writing on the water, I am constantly inspired to put pen to paper. There is a new scene every day to transcribe. It is both inspiration and research. For me, the more things that go wrong on the boat, the more I have to write about. Because, at the end of the day, with real life stories like the one above happening right before my eyes, who needs to write fiction?

What about you? Do you use your time by the water to develop scenes? Do you write about what you know or create new worlds to describe?

Victoria Allman has been following her stomach around the globe for twelve years as a yacht chef. She writes about her floating culinary odyssey through Europe, the Caribbean, Nepal, Vietnam, Africa and the South Pacific in her first book, Sea Fare: A Chef’s Journey Across the Ocean. Victoria is a columnist for Dockwalk, an International magazine for crew members aboard yachts. Her column, Dishing It Up, is a humorous look at cooking for the rich and famous in an ever-moving galley.

Her latest literary adventure sees Victoria contributing her tales of wandering the globe in search of new food to Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World, edited by Rita Golden Gelman.

You can read more of her food-driven escapades through her website.