Hello From The Midwest !

[Mr Mac]

Hi all! My name is Mac and, as the title says, I live in the Midwest. Might I also add that I'm not at all happy about living in the Midwest where certain things are concerned!

I am a USAF retiree and for most of my career with them (as well as many years after) we were stationed where there was water. Okinawa for three years, Guam for a bit over a year, Eglin AFB in Ft Walton Beach, FL for nine years and then I retired there so we were there for almost 20 years total. We lived in WA (Everett and Oak Harbor [where my wife was raised]) and absolutely loved it!

While my wife was always in love with sailing (her daddy is a retired sailor) I had always been a power boat kind of guy until one day when a friend asked me to help him move his sailboat from one marina to another. It would take a few hours so he told me to bring the wife along as well.

The trip was really only about fifteen miles or so but since the wind was up he asked if we wanted to just sail around a bit within Escambia and Pensacola Bays and I figured a day on a sailboat was better than a poke in the eye any day and we were off!

We of course, motored out of the old marina and into the open water of the bay when he raised the main sail and shut off the old diesel engine. It was at that moment, when all I could hear was the wind in the sail and the water against the hull that I was hooked!

Fast forward several years and my career brought me to the Midwest and our children are either grown or very close to it. Our youngest is 15 years old and is going to be a sophomore and our youngest daughter will be a senior. The pretty well leaves us about three years before we're on our own and will no longer need a four bedroom house.

Our plan is to sell it all off and move back to the Pacific NW and rent an apartment somewhere north of Seattle and buy our first sailboat! My wife is already set up to start ASA lessons in a couple of weeks up at Lake Carlyle in Illinois and I will take my courses when I can.

If it all works out then she and I will start our lives aboard by sailing the Puget Sound, the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Georgia (into Canada) just to get our feet wet and then we will venture on south as we get more and more comfortable with it all and who knows where we'll end up from there!

So, that's it in a nutshell and I truly look forward to continuing to read and learn from so many experienced hands as well as the noobs like us!


Mac

[carstenb]

I hate to tell you but sailing is just like golf - once you're hooked it becomes an incurable disease. I know - I'm hooked on both (fortunately so is the wife).

enjoy

[Waterway Guide]

Welcome aboard, Mac! Good luck with your "float plan"--happy sailing!

[Khagan1227]

Welcome aboard.

I too have the same problem, I live too far from the ocean, but lake sailing relieves some of the ache!

[Mr Mac]

Thanks for the welcome!

[Celestialsailor]

Welcome Mac...I went to Sailors Anonymous but it never took. I keep on slipping! Guess I'm doomed to a life on the water...

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard!
Good to have you posting here and it appears you have the affliction.
Thanks for your service and I like your plan.
I visited Lake Carlyle a few years ago just to see what was there. Lots of smaller type boats on a shallower type lake and looked like fun. Stayed at the quarters there at the AFB.
kind regards,