Captain Salty
Member
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2022
- Messages
- 13
- Vessel Name
- Mermaid
- Vessel Make
- Kady-Kroger 36’ Manatee
Hi folks. I started sailing at 14. At 17, after a couple years doing yacht club racing with my father, a friend of a friend of my father asked if I would crew on his 40 foot Bounty sloop. I was being evaluated to crew on the 1968 Transpacific to Tahiti. I had to skip Grad Night at Disneyland because we were leaving the next morning. I celebrated my 18th birthday on the return trip. At 20, I got my first USCG operator license. I had a job offer at the Isthmus of Catalina to operate the shore boats there. I was given an hours training by Doug Bombard, then general manager of Two Harbors for Santa Catalina Island Company. This sufficed for the five different boats they had at the time, most of them Seaway plywood boats with a single Diesel engine. I worked the Isthmus shoreboat gig another 2 summers, 1974 and 2000. Avalon in 1975. After a short career in aviation, I returned to the marine world, working for a sailing school and Norseman Yachts/Golden West Yachts in Marina del Rey, CA. I learned a lot about maintenance there! Sold marine electrical hardware for awhile and the went on a 5 year cruise to Tahiti via Mexico, Central America and Ecuador. My last job was with Caltrans, crossing the Sacramento River near Rio Vista. CA on a 99 ton steel car ferry. Got to retire at 70 after 10 years there. Bought my Willard from Savanah, GA and refitted her in Rio Vista while living aboard. Brought it to Puget Sound on her own bottom a couple years ago. 1st COVID summer was spent going around Puget Sound and the San Juan’s. This year I went to Glacier Bay and back. Not sure yet what is next.
Thanks!
