Where life takes us

Aug 3, 2005
56
Currently boatless - Eastern Seaboard
Hi all,

I know I only pop in her sporadically now. I don't have much time to read posts here. I'll explain.

I JUST found Don Parkers post from a few months ago flagging some of us old timers. I was going to respond there, but thought this is a topic that could have its own thread. Where life takes us.

I didn't know what sailing was until I met my first wife. She introduced me to it, and after a couple of seasons of trying to figure out how a sailboat goes upwind (if I knew the wind direction at all), it finally clicked.

We raced our Rhodes 19 but decided we wanted something we could sleep on, so we bought a Spirit 21. This was a cool little boat and we got bitten by the cruising bug. We had the Spirit one year and traded it for a Pearson 26.

We club raced and cruised this boat on our upstate New York lake for 20 years, and then we bought a 33' Hallberg-Rassy Mistral. This is an absolutely gorgeous boat with lots of mahogany to spend weeks every season varnishing and maintaining... but a beauty to look at.

Well, then a divorce, and a remarriage. And no boat. I gave my ex a house, two boats, and two cars all paid for in exchange for my business assets. She got the better of the deal. :)

We were boatless. It felt odd. But then my boss came to me and asked if I wanted to buy his mom's boat. She had recently passed. I asked what it was. He said it was a 46' trawler. No, I said, I'm a sailor! But long story short, we did buy it, spent a year making it run, I retired at age 60, and then we (Pamela and I, Smudge and Charlie the cats, and Ruby and Chevy the pit bulls) cruised from Stamford CT to Albany NY to Green Cove Springs FL (south of Jacksonville). This was the cruise of a lifetime for us. What a hoot! We spent about two years just meandering south, leaving when we didn't care for a place, and staying when we did.

Along the way I somehow became a photographer.

We finally decided we did our cruise and it was time for a new adventure. We sold Drift Away and bought ten acres of land deep in the forest of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. We started prepping the land to build. We had a few acres cleared, a well drilled, built a couple of outbuildings, and started digging a foundation. I intended to build the house myself, another thing I wanted to do. Well, a neck breaking accident with a tree ended that. So the land is for sale, we live in Florida, and I am an author with five books published and I'm working on my sixth.

The last book is "The Voyage of Drift Away: Stamford to Annapolis" and the one I'm writing now will be "The Voyage of Drift Away: Annapolis to Jacksonville". The other four are about Sasquatch.

Oh... did I mention that Sasquatch are a real thing? Yes. Yes they are. And they are amazing to interact with.

Anyhow, it is good to see old names here, and I'm going to try to take writing breaks and pop in here more often and learn who all you new guys are.

Life is good. No matter what happens, make the most of it. Even if you wind up in a trawler. :)
20111102AtlanticCityDriftAway.jpg
 

Tod

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Dec 30, 2010
82
Montgomery 17 trailered
Hard to believe I've known you since the Hotspur days. A lot sure has transpired since then!
 
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Aug 3, 2005
56
Currently boatless - Eastern Seaboard
It sure has, Tod. Whoda thunk I'd go from a 33' Hallberg Mistral to a trawler? LOL!
 
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rickff

.
Feb 11, 2017
8
Hi Dave,
Don't stop in much anymore myself. I remember much of your trials going back to the
old cruising world board. We too were in life changing mode. My wife at the time had
passed away suddenly, so cruising up and down the coast was put off. Then met my
present wife, also widowed young, and we started the dream again. found a boat, got laid off
from work, and started.
After 2 years up and down the coast with a winter stop in the Bahamas, we went to the Caribbean
2 years. Then we said what the hell, and crossed the pond, spending 5 years in Great Britain and
the Med. Arab Spring convinced us to come home.
We were in Green Cove Springs at different times, so never got together. we did repairs and some
camping, going to Alaska. Then one day, we wandered into Apalachicola. great anchorage and
free dinghy dock. We decided to stay.

Rick
 
Oct 19, 2017
7,733
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
What a great thread. Thanks, Dave, for starting it and sharing your story.
I grew up on the Gulf coast of Florida sailing and planned to always live on a sailboat, but lots of stuff happened and life takes us with it.
Now, I'm a farmer in the mountains of New Hampshire.

One day, maybe.:rolleyes:

- Will (Dragonfly)
 
Aug 3, 2005
56
Currently boatless - Eastern Seaboard
Hi Rick!
Florida is great. We're just outside of Ocala in the north-central part. I love it. Although it can get pretty hot!
 
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Hagar

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Jan 22, 2008
45
Catalina 42 Olympia Washington
Liked your story (except for the neck-breaking part)

Maybe we all already know the litany...

Sailboat, Motorboat, Motorhome, Rest Home.

Still hanging onto the Sailboat segment but can see the future from the cockpit.
 

LuzSD

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Feb 21, 2009
1,009
Catalina 30 San Diego/ Dana Point, Ca.
Best thread read in a long time. Keep them coming!!
 
Oct 10, 2011
619
Tartan 34C Toms River, New Jersey
Great story, I myself am planning to switch in the next few years God willing (I hope I didn't offend with mentioning God)
A nice single screw diesel trawler.
 
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Aug 3, 2005
56
Currently boatless - Eastern Seaboard
Great story, I myself am planning to switch in the next few years God willing (I hope I didn't offend with mentioning God)
A nice single screw diesel trawler.
My advice is to go for twin screw. With one engine in forward and the other in reverse, you can spin it in its own length. There is no need for bow thrusters.
 
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Tom J

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Sep 30, 2008
2,301
Catalina 310 Quincy, MA
Great story, Dave. I agree that making the most of life's opportunities can lead to wonderful adventures. Between getting divorced and buying a small house in Plymouth, MA, and finally settling down in Hawaii, I have cruised the East Coast, worked in marinas, been a deckhand/engineer on a workboat, and now work at farming two acres on Maui.
Along the way, I learned about people and boats as a dock master, visited exotic ports such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Corpus Christo, in the Dominican Republic. I lived at various times in New England, on the Gulf Coast of Florida in a very nice house with my girlfriend, on my sailboat cruising, and now divide the year between our house on Maui, and the boat in Quincy, MA. This summer, we will "cruise" our little RV around the country, leaving New England and stopping at as many National Parks as we can. The adventure continues.
 
Aug 3, 2005
56
Currently boatless - Eastern Seaboard
Great story, Dave. I agree that making the most of life's opportunities can lead to wonderful adventures. Between getting divorced and buying a small house in Plymouth, MA, and finally settling down in Hawaii, I have cruised the East Coast, worked in marinas, been a deckhand/engineer on a workboat, and now work at farming two acres on Maui.
Along the way, I learned about people and boats as a dock master, visited exotic ports such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Corpus Christo, in the Dominican Republic. I lived at various times in New England, on the Gulf Coast of Florida in a very nice house with my girlfriend, on my sailboat cruising, and now divide the year between our house on Maui, and the boat in Quincy, MA. This summer, we will "cruise" our little RV around the country, leaving New England and stopping at as many National Parks as we can. The adventure continues.
I love it! This is what life is all about.
 
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rickff

.
Feb 11, 2017
8
I think that this group, being what they do realizes
that life is journey, not a destination. The treasures are
not just found at the end, but along the way.
 
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Oct 19, 2017
7,733
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
I think that this group, being what they do realizes
that life is journey, not a destination. The treasures are
not just found at the end, but along the way.
I am fond of pointing out that the journey IS the destination. It isn't the end result that determines who we are, it is how we get there that does. The means is the end, there is no justification needed.

- Will ("moral philosopher", Dragonfly)
 
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