I was born in Ohio, the second oldest of 4 children to a couple of schoolteachers. We lived in a couple of small towns in Ohio, before finally moving to Columbus Ohio when I was 7. I developed my enthusiasm for traveling from my parents who used to take the family on a 2 to 3-week camping trip each summer. By the time I was 12, I had been to all the States except for Hawaii. We had even taken a 6-week camping trip to Alaska just after it had become a state. One memory that still looms large in my mind was when my Dad and I left the campsite in Valdes, Alaska one morning and went for a “little” hike. We ended up scrambling and climbing up the side of the mountain around a rock face and onto the Valdes Glacier. We then had to pick our way back down the glacier through the glacier’s crevasse field. Another memory was as we were leaving Alaska and heading for Dawson Creek in the Yukon territory, we stopped along the roadside of a mountain pass around midnight, hiked up a little spongy tundra covered hill listening to the bleating sound of ptarmigans, and watched the midnight sun come down, touch the northern horizon and then start moving back up in the sky. Indeed, I have a lot of fond memories of those trips traveling by car and camping out under the stars in the culturally rich and ethnically diverse United States of the 50’s. My early years were like Camelot, but like Camelot, it didn’t last. My father passed away not too long after the trip to Alaska. Being the only male in the family, it seemed like I ended up with a lot more of the family responsibilities. We lived in an upper middle-class neighborhood and were always playing financial catch up with the other kids. I guess because of this, I decided to work hard in school, make good grades, and make something of myself. I decided to become a doctor when I grew up. So that with the work at home and the extra schoolwork to make good grades, my life became a serious uphill grind for too many years. After high school the grind continued through College, Medical School, my residency, and even once into the practice of Anesthesiology. I became a workaholic looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and perhaps someday getting to that light. Although the practice of Anesthesiology at a tertiary care hospital in a major metropolitan area was quite fulfilling in itself, it was also quite demanding and required working a lot of long, odd hours. However, it did allowed me a fair amount of vacation time. One year I took a 5-week trip backpacking through Europe, another time I took a 5-week walkabout in New Zealand and Australia, and I also did a combination trip 2 weeks in East Africa and 2 weeks sailing from the Seychelles to Aden, Yemen. Indeed, over the years I developed an insatiable appetite for traveling and exploring the world. Somewhere along the road I missed out on the marriage/family thing, at least one of my own. As I think about it, the reasons were several and somewhat complex: a matter of priority and timing. With my nose to the grindstone pursuing a medical career I was slow to develop a social life and to use those skills in finding a significant other. The first serious relationship didn’t come until I was nearly 30 in Salt Lake City. A fellow anesthesiologist fixed me up with his next-door neighbor. Sandy already had three children a 6, a 5 and a 1 1/2 years old. When I first started going with Sandy my thought was that this would just be a short-term relationship. She was LDS and I was agnostic/atheist and if I wanted a family, I wanted my own family. But one-year lead to the next and that lead to another. Sandy was a quite attractive lady and there was a lot of physical chemistry between us, if not tormented physical chemistry because of the religious differences. I also became quite fond of the kids as well. But through the years our differences in religion and philosophies of life took its toll. As the kids grew into their teenage years and their interests moved from the family to their friends and relationships at school, and Sandy began entertaining the idea of pursuing a relationship with another guy, I felt there was no longer a place for me in their lives. So, after 10 years of sharing a part of their lives with them, I moved on. At that point I was sort of out of sync with developing another relationship. Most of the single women my age, particularly in Salt Lake City, had their hands full dealing with rambunctious, rebellious, teenage kids, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to jump somebody else’s extended family problems. Consequently, most of my free time was spent skiing in the winter, sailing in the summer, and traveling anytime of the year, although I’ll have to say my favorite was Europe in the Spring. Being particularly fond of traveling, visiting foreign places, cultures and experiencing foreign cuisine. I was either on a trip somewhere or had one planned, among them included a 5-week backpacking trip through Western Europe after just finishing up medical school, a couple of cruises on large cruise ships to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caribbean, a ski trip to Zermatt Switzerland, a 5-week walk about through New Zealand and Australia including a 4 day dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef, another 5-week back packing trip to Eastern Europe just after the Berlin Wall came down, a tour through East Africa, a three week car ride through Germany, a tour to South America, a tour through Turkey, a tour to Israel and Jordan, a tour through England, a tour through France, a tour to Japan and China, including a stop in Hongkong, a tour to India and Nepal including a stop in Bangkok ,a tour through Northern Europe and Russia, a 2-week visit to London, Bruges, and Paris, and a tour to Egypt. In addition, I had a couple of time share condominiums that I used in Mazatlán and Yellowstone, and traded these for stays in Jamaica, Cancun, Acapulco, San Diego and many times in Hawaii. I also became interested in scuba diving and did several dive trips to San Diego, The Bahamas, Bonaire, Cozumel, and Belize. My first exposure to sailing came not long after I moved to Utah. At the time it seemed like there was a craze for catamaran sailing and I was introduced to Hobie Cats while vacationing with one of my colleagues, down on his houseboat on Lake Powell. His niece had brought a Hobie 14, down from Salt Lake City. I had wanted to try one out, and this gave me the opportunity. So, one morning my girlfriend Sandy and I pushed the Hobie into the water and hopped on. The wind was hardly blowing but enough for the boat to respond to the tiller and mainsheet. With Sandy working the jib and me working the mainsail and tiller, we sailed out into the dark blue lake surrounded by high red sandstone walls, under an azure sky. It was as if the boat was suspended in space and you could feel an invisible force energizing the boat and pushing us along in the water. I thought to myself “So this is what sailing is about.” Later that week while Gary’s kids were out on the Hobie a storm came up quickly and tipped the boat Hobie cat over. Gary and I had to go out in his motorboat to rescue them. After loading the kids into the boat, Gary and I righted the overturned Hobie and tried to sail the it back to the house boat, but in the intense wind we were unable to make the Hobie tack through the wind, obviously neither of us had much experience with a Hobie Cat. We finally ended up taking the sails down and towing the boat back with the motorboat. Although unsuccessful in sailing the boat back, the effort was exhilarating. I was hooked on sailing. Later that season I bought my own Hobie 16, which I kept at Deer Creek Reservoir, a small mountain lake in the area known for its brisk afternoon winds. Starting out with the 16 in the early 80s, I moved up to an 18 SX with wings in the early 90s. The Hobie Cat on Deer Creek Reservoir provided the energy fix for the adrenaline junky part of me, and it was a great way to learn the mechanics of sailing. There is no better way to learn the mechanics of sailing than on a small say sailor. Also, in the early 90’s I hooked up with a sailing group in the Wasatch Mountain Club. A guy in the club would get a group of interested people together and then we would go and Charter Boats in different cruising grounds around the world. Over the next 10 years we did 9 trips with anywhere from 2 to 6 boats with usually about 6 people on a boat. At least in the beginning the group was long on enthusiasm and short on experience, so with my Hobie Cat experience I was chosen to skipper one of the boats. The first trip was, of course, to the Virgin Islands. After that we, move down the chain of Caribbean Islands, then Belize, Greece, Turkey, Sea of Cortez, and the Society Islands. The experiences and adventures that we shared on those trips are among my best memories. Then a couple of other guys from the Wasatch Mountain Club and I brainstormed a plan to form a three-year partnership to buy a sailboat. We located her in Marina Del Rey and named her Wasatch because we were all from the Salt Lake Area and all skied in the Wasatch Mountains there. Our plan was to refit her for cruising in the first year, to sail her down through the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean and then take turns going down to sail her in the next two years. To make a long story short, the partnership quickly fell through and before I knew it, I was the dubiously proud owner of a 17-year-old Kelly Peterson 44 fixer upper. When we originally bought her, we didn’t realize the full extent of the term “fixer upper” and “getting her ready for cruising.” Indeed, in the earlier years, it was a crap shoot to get the Wasatch the 38 miles from Marina Rey to Catalina Island and back without a seemingly serious breakdown: engine not starting, leaking fuel lines, dirty fuel, leaking water tanks, refrigerator breakdowns, fan belts breaking, etc. Being sole owner of the boat now, it didn’t make sense for me to go cruising until I retired. So, I had plenty of time to get her ready. Twelve years later after putting a huge amount of time and boat dollars into her, she was polished up and put back into a reasonably solid, safe, and comfortable center cockpit sailing vessel. With her teak interior and outside trim, she has the old boat charm with all the modern equipment. As my life with sailing progressed, I began to realize that I had been passing through different stages of sailing. The first stage: Hobie cat sailing in the 80s and 90s. This was the fun and often exhilarating day trips out on Deer Creek Reservoir. The second stage: I transitioned into bigger boat sailing, first, with the Wasatch Mountain Club and then the Kelley Peterson to Catalina Island in the 90s. Then I transitioned into the third stage: This involved little sailing at all. My trips to Marina Del Rey were to work on the boat, attend dock parties, and just read about sailing. I spent a good part of my time reading sailing magazines, books, and manuals, and experiencing other people’s sailing adventures. In short, I became a boat slip/armchair sailor. Like so many that buy a boat with a dream of sailing off, I began to wonder if I would ever actually leave. The “to do list” seemed to never end. As I would tick one item off the list, another would be added. However, I finally set a date, October 2007, ready or not, slipped the lines, and headed into the 4th stage: “The Adventures of the Wasatch.