One thing I have seen in this world are dreamers.

While I was living on and cruising my sailboat in my thirties, there were a lot of people that I would run into that wold ask me questions about my lifestyle and how I was going about it.

I would tell them simply to buy a boat and just start doing it, if that was their dream.

Of course, they would generally tell me that they were saving up for a sixty-five footer so they could 'do it right'.

When I would hear the sixty-five footer line, I knew then and there that I was having my time wasted because there was no way in hell they were going to come up with that kind of money in their lifetime.

My boat, Karen Lee, was a 24 foot, 7 inch Sailstar Corsair, also commonly referred to as a Bristol 25. Built in 1969, she was a full keeled cruiser that displaced 5820 pounds. I bought her in Everett, Washington and learned how to sail by bringing her up the Inside Passage and crossing the Gulf of Alaska to Kodiak.

She didn't cost a whole hell of a lot, and the same model boat is still out there on the used market for a hell of a lot less than I paid for her back in the day.

She cost me $8750 and I managed to save that money over a period of time by living rent free and living off of things I could get for free in Kodiak. I had to survive on venison, halibut, king crab, salmon and shrimp. Poor baby.

I outfitted her in Port Townsend, WA and two of us sailed her north, leaving P.T. on D-day and arriving in Kodiak in early-mid September. My sailing partner was a bush pilot/fisherman that went with me simply for the adventure.

It was a trip I will never forget because we were obviously in no hurrry and had a ball. We left with an exceptionally small amount of money and bartered and wheeled and dealed our way up the inside passage on no particular schedule.

We worked, lived, loafed and cruised up the inside passage, crossed the Gulf of Alaska, had a ball and one hell of an interesting adventure. We improvised, made do, traded, bartered, worked odd jobs as they came along and

All this took place while the pipe dreamers sat on their asses and ran their mouths about what they were going to do when 'it all came together'.

It wasn't the sixty-five footer all of the pipe dreamers spoke of, it was a puddle-jumper that I had turned from a weekend cruiser to a blue-water long haul cruising sailboat for peanuts, a lot of trading, scrounging and a lot of sweat and work.

Over the years a lot of people have wondered why I seem to have so many adventure tales to tell. The reason is simply that I when I found something that interested me, I simply went out and did it.

Sure, I was swimming upstream and I certainly took the road less traveled, and a lot of people looked at me like I was an odd duck, but it has been twenty-five years since I bought Karen Lee and sailed her like a madman. I sold her two decades ago and I have my memories.

Two bucks to a stale Krispy Kreme says that the pipe dreamers waiting for their ship to come in are still sitting at the bar somewhere waiting for it all to come together.



my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/