How it progressed...

After getting married, my wife and I occasionally set up trips with friends and chartered boats in increasing size from a 35' Mackinaw Cutter on Lake Michigan

 to a Hunter 41 on the Chesapeake.












The introduction of children to all of our young families brought this chapter to a close.
As my children were growing up, they all loved being around water. When they reached an age where we felt comfortable taking them on a boating vacation, my wife and I decided to introduce them to sailing. The question was, "Where to go?". With the short attention span of most of our society today, I was concerned that selecting a location that would require long sails might poison the experience for them. Google to the rescue! (Or rather some other search engine as this was pre-google). Searches for the best sailing area routinely directed me to the British Virgin Islands. So in 1999 we made our first excursion to the BVI's. My kids loved it. I've been back there every second year since then. Along the way, we've introduced a number of friends to this floating oasis vacation paradise.
We've mostly sailed catamarans while in the BVI's due to their large interiors and stability which minimizes discomfort for non-sailors that we have introduced to this experience.

A few of the boats we've charted:

Lagoon 500

Hunter 46

PDQ 36

Horizon 56

Lagoon 450

Knysna 47

How it began for me

I'm not actually sure how or when it happened, but a "big" item crept onto my bucket list while I wasn't looking: to sail across the Atlantic in a sailboat.

A little background...

When I was young (around 6 years old) I learned to sail on a Snark, which is a very small lateen-rigged sailboat. My grandparents had a small cabin on a large inland lake in northern Michigan that we visited regularly during the summer. My dad had saved up a small slush fund by emptying his spare change into a container each night. When the change bucket was full he ordered a Snark which showed up in a cardboard box a few weeks later.
I loved that boat. Not only was it a lot of fun, it gave me great freedom. On my seventh birthday, I sailed across the lake by myself; it was a little over a mile. Although this probably made my parents a bit anxious, they were always supportive. I suspect I received some recognition for this small feat which may have started the growth of  a small germ inside me. It's hard to pinpoint later in life the many inputs that form us.


A few years later,  a Hobie Cat 16 was added to our fleet. (R.I.P. Hobie Alter)
This boat was an order of magnitude faster and more sophisticated than the tiny snark. It introduced me to a whole new level of sailing excitement and capability.

When I was a young teenager, my dad received a substantial bonus one year and used it to purchase a "cruising boat". The boat was the Hereshoff designed Chrysler 26 and we sailed Lake Huron on it many weekends and for a week or two at a time each summer. This was my introduction to the cruising lifestyle. Arriving at each new port provided lots of opportunities to explore and discover what the town had to offer. Or at least to what was within the range of my trusty skateboard.
I have fond memories of learning how to hank on  a headsail in a choppy sea, taking a nap in the sun while laying on a sailbag on deck,  the adrenaline rush of "exciting times", and some not-so-fond memories of boredom during long legs on the same tack. This experience culminated in my first extended trip where I was the captain when I took my two best friends from Tawas City, Michigan to the North Channel in Ontario, Canada at age 17. We had numerous adventures and returned with everyone relatively unscathed and the boat no worse for wear.