I wonder where I got my fascination with sailing ships. As far as I know I do not come from seafaring people. My father was a pilot. His father was a farmer. If you read our family genealogies on both sides of my family, they are storers of people who lived from from the oceans. I grew up as an inlander, the child of inlanders. Some of my relatives have served in the military, but I can’t think of one who was in the navy.

I was 68 years old before I lived within a thousand miles of an ocean. And yet . . . here I am aboard a 1924 tall ship. And today we sailed to where I could see the bay that is near the home where we now live.

What a joy this day has been! I got to haul the halyard for the jib. Go out on the bow to unfurl the sail, climb up on the boom of a sail.

And we have hardly sailed. The wind gave out and became so calm that we motored and mortar sailed most of the day. Now at anchor, I have a few minutes to sit in my birth and reflect. Much of this process feels so natural to me. In reality, however, it is all new.

My father briefly considered becoming a dealer for a jet boat manufacturer. He was intrigued by the mechanics of the pump, I think. At any rate, we had a boat around for a few weeks and I took one ride on it. But my family weren’t boat people. My uncle owned several boats in his life. They had a cabin on a lake and he usually had a water ski boat and later also had a sailboat. But we visited them only once a year or so.

Before we moved to Idaho and I got involved in a water sports camp, I had virtually no experience with boats of any kind. That experience made me want a boat of my own. I had very little discretionary money at that phase of my life so I made a canoe. That led to other boat building experiences. I also discovered a love of paddling.

I did not, however, know anything about the ocean. I once paddled my canoe in the Puget Sound off of Whidby Island. I nearly capsized it in the waves. That experience led to my making my first kayak. That boat is still my favorite kayak for everyday paddling. I’ve paddled it in a lot of different waters including the Bay of Fundy, Lake Superior, The Salish Sea, and dozens of lakes and rivers.

After that boat I sought out opportunities to paddle in the ocean. I built another kayak in the style of a Greenland skin-on-frame boat. I covered it with aircraft Dacron because I knew how to work with that material.

It wasn’t until I started paddling again this summer that I started to pay attention to tides and realized how much I still have to learn.

Since that is my story, I wonder why it is that I am so attracted to sailing ships. At my age I don’t have the active fantasy imagination I once had. I am less entertained by the impossible. I am very content with my lot in life. I do not wish for things I don’t have and I want for nothing.

And here I am. On an historic sailing schooner - a competitor in the 1928 trans-Atlantic race. I find it remarkable. It surprises me how natural it feels. Maybe the source of my fascination with sailing is my imagination fueled by a good dose of reading sailing stories. Whatever the source, this adventure is a wonderful experience. I am blessed.