The beginning

How did I end up here? I remember being in a tree, leaning back and hearing the branch crack.  Next thing I know I'm laying on my back looking up at a group of people who look very concerned.  My arm hurts and people are talking about calling a doctor.

The year is 1972 and I'm playing in a tree with some friends in Alexandria, VA.  I have fallen from the tree and broken my right arm.  I spend the next two weeks at home followed by six weeks in a cast.  One of my father's co-workers gave me a book to read while I recovered - the book was Dove.

Dove was the story of a 16 year old boy who sailed around the world on his own.  It took him 5 years and two boats to do it, but he finally completed the journey.  He was sponsored by National Geographic and they printed articles chronically his adventures.

The story changed my life, but I didn't know it at the time.  It turns out that the book had an affect on many people of my generation and created a multitude of cruisers.  Reading about a young man who managed to sail around the world, the hardships, the adventures, the loneliness, only increased the intrigue.  I glossed over the difficulties and focused on the adventures.

At 10 years old, I had spent all my time on the water on power boats.  I didn't even know anyone who sailed, but the images were etched into my mind and stayed there over the years.  I built a model sailboat and sailed it in local streams and later on, salt water canals.  I thought that at some point in my life -maybe when I retired - I would learn how to sail, but then fate stepped in again.

20 years later, I was on a cruise with my wife's family.  We had seen a lot of sailboats in the ports we had attended and I got me thinking about sailing again.  During an 8 hour wait for our flight at the end of the cruise I went to a store to look for something to read.  I found a magazine called Cruising World, all about cruising in sailboats.  I learned that you can charter sailboats all over the world on vacations.  Just like you can rent a car, you can rent a sailboat.  I also learned that you can take sailing lessons as part of a vacation and a plan began to form in my mind.  I thought, "why not learn how to sail, take charter vacations in the Caribbean each year and gain experience long before I plan to retire?"  And that is exactly what I did.  I convinced my wife to join me by promising that she would not actually have to sail as long as she joined me for the courses.  On all of our vacations she could just lay out while I took all the responsibility.  She fell for it.

That was 15 years ago.  Since then we have chartered boats 14 times all over the Caribbean, have owned our own sailboat for 7 years and have now sold our home and bought a large sailboat to live aboard.

And so, the journey begins....