Owning a boat makes no practical sense. The only reason any of us are here is we have somehow come to love boats and the sea. How did you get to that condition?

I was an Ohio farm boy enthralled with sea stories by Melville, Conrad, and others. I don't recall if the Michener TV series 'Adventures in Paradise' came before or after my interest in sea novels.

Later, my family had a ski boat in my adolescence and teens. I enjoyed that but knew I wanted more someday. My first experience on a sailboat was humbling. I hoisted the sail on a Sunfish sailboard while standing on the downwind side and was promptly pushed overboard. Even then I knew it was just the beginning.

Somehow I was capture by the promise of freedom on the water and the beauty of nature. One of my best memories is being totally alone in a beautiful moment with a vast vista of water and marsh grass passing through a swarm of bait fish under attack from below and from swooping gulls above. Or sailing in pitch black darkness off the east coast with the only the visible image of phosphorescent streams of dolphins playing in the bow wave.

Its not practical but it sure makes sense to me.