Photo by Stephanie Downs

I was heading back to Canada after living in London, U.K., for two years and I wanted to go out with a bang.

After selling our belongings and buying a little 1989 VW Golf, my Australian boyfriend and I left the U.K. on a three-month European road trip.

We were gone for the summer months, so camping off the side of the road was not uncommon. And we lived on a steady diet of baked beans and spaghetti, which we smuggled onto the mainland from the U.K.

Everything was going perfectly -- "Bertha" the car was humming along smoothly -- and we met some wonderful people and saw some amazing places.

After two months of being away, disaster struck.

I ran out of money in Croatia. The blow was softened by the Adriatic's waters and the white sandy beaches. If worse came to worse, I would just have to live the rest of my life under those conditions. Imagine the horror!

After a week of no money, I met an amazing elderly British couple who needed help sailing their boat from Dubrovnik to Ancona, Italy, and were willing to pay my boyfriend and me £500 for our help.

The only problem was that neither of us had sailed a day in our lives! We weren't going to turn this opportunity down, so we convinced them that we were fast learners.

People at the campsite where we were staying were kind enough to look after Bertha until we got back, so we were off.

Fifteen hours of blue skies and blue-green waters, watching the Croatian coastal line leave us behind and watching the Italian coast greet us with similar conditions are sights never to forget.

The dolphins jumping around our boat were the perfect backdrop to the wealthy couple's generosity, not only with money, but with food, wine and hospitality.

Once we arrived, they even gave us money for a ferry back to Dubrovnik where we would reunite with Bertha.

Since we never had to take the sails once, I am convinced that this couple was either in need of company or felt sorry for my monetary situation... or they were sent from the Gods.

I will never forget the coast and that couple. Because of them, I had enough money to finish our journey, especially since we were confined to Eastern Europe where the exchange rate was favourable and the wine was cheap!

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It was a road trip of a lifetime. As I write this from snowy Halifax, I almost wish that my ship never sailed so that I would still be stuck on those Croatian beaches.