How did you get bitten?

[sublime22761]

I'm bitten by the bug. I'm wondering how everyone else got bitten. I've yet to make my wants a reality but working on it at my speed. Pleased to hear from all the members.

[grahamb]

had no choice......born in a boat building shed..... built over the water....sailed as bailer boy at 3 in the famous 18 footers in Sydney Harbour......now 70 years on I regret not sailing for those first years.....never occurred to me to do anything else but sail .....

[Kenomac]

At Boy Scout camp in the late 1960's, Newport Beach, CA. Sea Scout Base.

[laika]

Jumped on a boat a few buddies were living on out of school and soon moved aboard full time. Grew up landlocked unaware of the possibility of such a lifestyle and recall being totally bitten the first time we were out in a fresh breeze under full sail heeled over with the waves slapping against the hull. It's a true bastion of freedom in the world, available to anyone who's willing to pay their dues into it.

When things are great you simply can't beat it. When things suck it can be brutal. It teaches you certain lessons I assume are otherwise nearly impossible to come by because it forces you to deal so directly with the act of living.

[SailingFan]

Got tired of catching fish from mud puddles because I could not get "out there" to larger fish. Then once I managed to thumb a ride as a ten year old on a boat to catch fish, I was hooked. After that, moved to ever larger boats, eventually to 80,000 ton displacement air craft carrier and travelled the Atlantic, North Sea, Med, and Indian Ocean/Gulfs of Aden/Oman and the Red Sea. Even took a few stints to some quietly "traveled" places on that carrier!

When I got home finally, I purchased my own first boat, a fiberglass Sears dingy with a 10 HP outboard, and then on to aluminum Sea Nymphs (one normal, one with higher freeboard). Then on to a Chris Craft Scorpion, and thumbed rides on boats of other sorts along the way. Now have a Plastic Classic Hunter, and love her despite her minor warts and age spots. Will move up again one day, maybe to a 40 footer. That is hopefully where I will settle, and spend the rest of my time. We shall see, but the voyage has been fun to date!

[Sailor_JR]

Since really young age there is always been some strange feeling that draws me to the sea but when I first set sails on charter one summer, "bug" really bite me...hard !

[danielamartindm]

I religiously watched a silly TV show called "Adventures in Paradise" as a child, while growing up around boats on Long Island's south shore. My first sailboat was a Folboat, a vinyl skin stretched about a wooden skeleton, with leeboards. I worked as a yard boy, cleaning up power boats just prior to showings, and learned to sail on the Great South Bay. Dreams are like voyages, the important thing is to undertake them, and to embrace them as they unfold; destinations are never quite what we think they'll be.

[SV Siren]

All thanks to my mom. She insisted that our family buy a sailboat, so we part-time lived aboards starting when I was around 8...my parents got out of boating when I was in my 20's. The passion never left, but I didn't get back into boating till my late 40's. Jobs, and travel had me distracted for a long time..

[mikedefieslife]

I'm an overlander. To me sailing is just another form of travelling overland (read over the surface of the earth). It's made better that I can live onboard in luxury compared to my usual overland trips. Plus I like the idea of being as self-sufficiant as possible. So when the excrement hits the fan, and the wold is like in the film waterworld at least I have a head start

[cfodk]

Used to sail but lost it. Rebitten by s/v Delos

[Bertie68]

Light sail course when in my teens... best two weeks in my life. Later on, I got a boating license in Poland, and now yet another in Spain (the worst and most foolishly regulated country in the world for sailors, if you are a national). Now looking for a small, old... and cheap boat so I can at least sail around the bay in my town.

[DaBod]

I was 18, fresh out of high school, and visiting family in Connecticut for a cousin’s wedding. Growing up in Oklahoma, I’d never really been exposed to sailing, but jumped at an invitation to hop on my uncle’s Morgan 36 for a Wednesday night club race. My uncle and his tight-knit crew could best be described as drinkers with a sailing problem, so I knew it would be a good time. I had no idea, however, that it would change me forever.

My goals as we pulled out of the slip were to simply stay out of the way and not get myself hurt. I was immediately captivated by the organized chaos that ensued and by the efficiency with which the 3-man crew ran the boat; they were a well-oiled machine. Quite literally well-lubricated, what with all the booze about.

The spinnaker set was concussive as we entered the downwind leg and ran perpendicular to a colorful sunset over Long Island Sound. All chaos on deck ceased and my fear of decapitation melted into the can of Budweiser in my hand. Suffice to say, I was hooked. I had never experienced anything like it before.

Years prior, my parents impulsively bought a beat up Super Snark for $50 at a garage sale and never used it. Immediately after returning home from Connecticut, I dug it out of the garage, pieced the lateen rig back together using what I could find at the local hardware store, and when not mowing lawns for tuition (beer) money, taught myself to sail it on a nearby lake.

Here I am 18 years, several boats, and a couple of crewing jobs later, about one year out from buying “the boat” that will take my family and me to far off places. At that point, we’ll probably be on year seven or eight of what was originally a five-year plan, but what can ya do?

[skipmac]

Born and raised inland and until after college the only boat I had ever been on was a 14' Sears jonboat. Never even saw the ocean until I was a teenager.

Went to see some old buddies that lived in FL to go camping in the Keys. He suggested we rent a little boat to sail around Biscayne Bay which sounded like it could be fun. Instead, the charter company told us they had a new 37' boat that needed delivery to the Bahamas. Said we could have it free for two weeks if we delivered it Eleuthera and paid our own expenses.

The first time we hoisted sails and turned off the engine I was addicted. When I saw the clear turquoise water in the islands that just sealed the deal. Life has never been the same since.

[belizesailor]

Friend's Hobie 16 in college...still not recovered. 😆

[Shark_Bait]

New to the forums, haven't made a greeting post yet. In fact, some of this will end up in that post.

I got bit when I was in the Army. I was a watercraft operator for 6 years, 5 of which were in Hawaii on a 455' landing craft. Thanks to that I got some years living aboard and cumulative 3 something years seatime. Then I was landlocked for 6 years bringing me to current. I just got back from a family trip to the beach and realized just how much I missed being on the water, which brings me here, actively moving towards my dream.

How did you get bit, OP?