He Offers Everything but Venice Itself

Joe Munday believes there are two types of people in the world: “romantics and background people.”

One look at 53-year-old Munday at the helm of the Golden Swan, a 25-foot replica of a Venetian gondola he built in the garage of his Garden Grove home, and it is easy to see which type he is.

Munday is an incurable romantic who could never blend into the background, no matter how hard he tries.

Weekdays, 9 to 5, he works at McDonnell Douglas, where his co-workers accept the fact that he is . . . well . . . a bit different. “They all know I’m a garage gondolier,” he says.

And on weekends, Munday leaves his garage and brazenly takes to the water as president of the Gondola Society of America, an organization he describes as a “mid-life crisis-management society for reincarnated gondoliers.”

As Munday puts it: “I figure I must be a reincarnated gondolier because I am not Italian and I have never been to Venice.”

Munday’s fascination with the gondola grew out of his hobby of building model ships in bottles. In 1983, after he was forced to close his medical instrument-sales business and found himself with time on his hands, he began building scale models of the graceful Venetian gondola. “I made a 12-inch model,” he recalls. “Then a 40-inch model. Then a 60-inch model. So I asked myself: ‘What is a real gondola? Nothing more than a big model’; and so I built one.”

While the gondolas of Venice are powered by oars, Munday decided to install small, quiet electric motors in his boats. Relying on his experience as a medical instruments salesman, he chose a compact, yet powerful cardiac-monitor motor of the type used to power treadmills in a doctor’s office.

Munday has built 12 full-size, 25-foot, four-passenger, electric-powered gondolas and has sold 11 of them “here and there.” (One is now used as a salad bar in Seattle, he says.) His gondola-building was never a business, he is quick to explain, but was “therapy” that helped him through his difficult mid-life transition from one career to another.

He was in the process of building his 12th gondola, the Golden Swan, when he landed the job at McDonnell Douglas 2 years ago. Once he was employed again, he knew he would not have time to build gondolas, so he decided to scrap the half-completed boat and get on with his life.

But his wife, Colette, talked him out of it. “She said: ‘Look if you throw away all your dreams, you’ll be sad.’ ”

So instead of scrapping the Golden Swan, Munday decided to make the boat his grandest creation. And, with his wife’s encouragement, he decided to share his passion for the gondola with the public. On weekends, he began taking paying passengers on 2-hour gourmet picnics on Newport Bay, where the Golden Swan is docked. So far, about 80 couples have paid $189 each to step into Munday’s dreams, to glide away in the Golden Swan to a make-believe world of romance, roses and champagne.

The boat itself is satin white, topped by a burgundy canopy and ringed by heavy curtains, which can be drawn for privacy. Guests sit on thick, red velour cushions and sink their toes into plush Oriental rugs. On chilly days, hidden electric motors heat the interior of the Golden Swan and passengers can wrap themselves in warm, red blankets.

Joe Munday sits in back, at the helm, behind a curtain and out of sight. Wearing a wide-brimmed hat, red jacket, immaculate white slacks and a jaunty scarf around his neck, he is the image of a well-dressed, 20th-Century gondolier. In fact, he derives such pleasure from playing this part that it is difficult to coax him out of character.

“The gondolier is the friend of the gentleman and the confidante and co-conspirator of the lady, second only to her hairdresser,” he says, without pausing for breath.

“Ah, this is just like Venice in the autumn,” he continues as he steers the Golden Swan out of Lido Marina Village, where he picks up passengers in front of the Warehouse Restaurant.

“I am now going to perfume the air with electric mandolin,” he says as he flips the switch on the portable cassette player he keeps near the helm station. Strains of gentle, romantic music fill the air and Munday sighs. “Do you know why the gondolier has ribbons in his hat?” he asks. “They represent the kisses (blown by admiring ladies) that he catches in his hat as he passes.”

At that moment, a large powerboat glides by, the passengers look at Munday and all seven people aboard the boat beam smiles of approval. No one blows a kiss, but one man gives Munday a thumbs-up sign.

“It happens every time,” he says. “Like magic. All the adults smile. The kids say, ‘Rad!’ ”

Munday chuckles to himself, a happy gondolier who delights in sharing his joy with his “patrons,” all of whom become honorary members of the Gondola Society of America.

Claiming to subscribe to the gondolier’s code--”we see nothing, we hear nothing, we tell nothing”--Munday is reluctant to talk about the romantic escapades of his patrons. “I’m saving it all for a book,” he says slyly.

But he does tell of the young woman who reserved the Golden Swan so that she could deliver a face-to-face “Dear John” letter to a prospective suitor she no longer wanted to see.

And, although Munday dons his gondolier guise only on weekends, he has been persuaded to do an occasional “mercy moonlight cruise,” he says, when someone desperately needed the services of a discreet gondolier.

During the Newport Harbor Christmas boat parade, Munday even dons a Santa gondolier outfit so that he and his passengers can join in the parade.

(Information on how to reserve a ride in the Golden Swan or on joining the Gondola Society of America is available by calling Munday at (714) 898-3431.)

“This boat is a mission for me,” Munday says. “A mission to preserve the world’s most romantic historic treasure--the Venetian gondola. Did you know the gondola is not a boat at all?” he asks. “It’s an aqua sculpture.”