Where to start?

It dawned on me today that my log book is fine for capturing notes and what happens on the boat but there's no way to include pictures and not a lot of room to post my thoughts.  While I post on forums, I've been wary of putting anything too personal online, whether on a forum or Facebook, or whatever.  So, at the risk of having this either go nowhere, or come back and bite me, I'm going to give it a try.

Where to start is the question . . . at the beginning seems trite, but I suppose it makes sense.

When I was a kid my parents owned a Bristol Corsair 24 sailboat.  We spent a lot of time on the boat, often cruising for 1-2 weeks in the summer.  In 1999, over 20 years after my last sail on her, I returned home from Oregon and spent a week sailing Aeolus in Maine with my Dad.  I didn't know it at the time, but that week would change my life.

Several years ago, probably a few years after the 1999 trip, I told my wife (also referred to as "The Admiral") that my 5 year plan was to have a boat that we could use to watch fireworks on the Columbia River.  At the time I think I had my sister's old Laser sailboat - not exactly something to take on the river at night with passengers!

Skip forward a few years to May, 2007 - Deborah (not yet promoted to "The Admiral") picks me up at work then asks me to drive back to her office.  "Ok, why?", "You'll see".  There, in the parking lot, chained to a post, was a beautiful 2004 Catalina Capri 16.5 sailboat.  Practically before I knew what had happened we'd bought the boat from the charity that it had been donated to and she'd found a buyer for the laser!  What The Admiral wants, The Admiral gets!  The Capri 16.5 wasn't something I'd take on the river at night, either, but it was big enough for 2 adults and one or two grandkids.  We also discovered Fern Ridge Reservoir, which was much nicer than Foster Lake for sailing.

Verboten, our 2001 Catalina Capri 22, came to us unexpectedly just over a year later.  We'd been invited on a 4th of July cruise by an acquaintance with an Olson 25, and when the Admiral mentioned that we'd eventually like a bigger boat, he said "the one 3 slips down from me is for sale".  We took a look, drooled a bit, and I put it out of my mind.  After about 2 weeks the Admiral asked if I was going to talk to the owner and see how much he wanted.  "Uh, sure Honey, but we can't afford it."   So, I contacted Mike, found out what he was asking, and did nothing.  Until the Admiral asked if I was going to talk to the bank.  "Uh, sure Honey, but they won't give me the money."   Only they did, on the condition that I sell the Capri 16.5, which we did, and suddenly, at the end of July 2008 we had a boat that we could sleep on.

Why Verboten?  Well, that's the name she came with, and, frankly, I couldn't think of anything better.  Mike's reason for the name seemed good, so we decided to stick with it:  His mother was German and, according to Mike, when he was growing up anything that was fun was "verboten."  Makes sense to me, so we kept it.

We finished out the summer of 2008 getting used to the bigger boat before we pulled for the winter at the end of September (they start to drain the lake on October 1st).  Spring/Summer 2009 we continued to get used to the boat, anchored out once or twice, and really got comfortable with Verboten.  This year we launched as soon as we could in April and have sailed as often as we can, often twice a week.   We also expanded our sailing horizons, but that will have to be my next post.