Who Is Virginia Russell? A Member Profile

She learned to tie a bowline when she was four.  Gini was the oldest of five children in a family that spent their summers farming and boating from an island off the coast of Maine.  It was a family never without a boat, she says. 

   

Virginia (Gini) Russell on patrol.  Photo by Phill Smith

“A boat to get to the island, a boat to deliver farm products, a boat to get to town, a boat to bring back groceries and a boat to get off the island for the winter.”  All sorts of wooden boats and all sorts of maintenance, which they all did themselves.

In the 1950s it was college in Boston and teaching before marriage, then motherhood with four children.  (She has nine grandchildren.)  They bought land on Cape Cod and built their own house and her husband built a sailfish as their first family boat.  “Later we added larger and then larger sailboats.  Sailing and racing became a big part of our summers.  Somewhere along the way we acquired a Boston Whaler. . .  With kayaks and board boats and a variety of sailboats, there are still 15 to store every winter.”

In 1974 Gini volunteered at the New England Aquarium, wound up getting scuba certified and then taught in their education department until 1991.  Her husband died of cancer while their two youngest children were still in college.

The 65-foot schooner Memory.  Photo from Gini's files

“I had an opportunity to help a friend take his 65-foot schooner, Memory, south and I stayed aboard for most of the next three years, sailing from New England to Venezuela and many, many ports betwixt and between.” Navigation was just a part of her job, Gini said. 

In 1995 Gini bought a villa at Highland Woods in Bonita Springs and met Frank Armour at the Bonita Springs Library with his hands full of boating books.  “He convinced me I should come Wednesday night to a Flotilla 96 meeting at Wiggins Pass.  The place was jumping with men and women.  Could I help teach? Could I visit schools?  Would I like to be part of an all-girl patrol?”  She borrowed Frank’s Boating Safety and Seamanship book, passed the exam, and a week later she was off to the PX in Fort Myers to get a uniform. 

   

Back in those days, she says, there were fewer members and more boats.  “We were always out on the water.”  In 1996 the flotilla had 65 members and 16 boats in frequent use.  Today

she says she has trouble signing onto a patrol because they’re usually full.  The all-girl patrols she enjoyed are part of the distant past.

In addition to her boating skills in navigation, knots and lines, and maintenance of all kinds, Gini’s many interests include birding, tennis, skiing, golf, photography and travel.  She just returned from a three-week trip to Africa and plans foreign travel every year.  She has often chartered and sailed in foreign waters and scuba dived with veteran divers.  Her thirst for adventure on the water is still keen.

“There’s lots of the world to see and many new harbors to sail or motor into,” she says.  “ Water and being in or on it has been a large part of my life.”