BIO: HOW IT BEGAN

In February 1999 Rick and I got married. At that point, Rick had been sailing for over 30 years and had owned at least seven different boats. Most recently he had single handed down the Pacific coast from Coos Bay Oregon to the Sea of Cortez where he lived on his Hunter 30 , the Loon, for the season. Due to family needs, he put the Loon up on the hard and returned to San Diego to help care for his father. After a short trip back home to Coos Bay, he and I decided to get married. We did so on February 6, 1999. Up to that point I had been on a sailboat a grand total of one time. Rick had previously owned a Stiletto 27 and had taken me on a sail in the bay, once. It was "interesting". Rick's life long dream has been to cruise. Having done so, even for just the one season, the dream was even stronger. After getting married though he returned to work. The new dream; get a bigger boat and both go cruising. In 2001 Rick returned to San Carlos and brought the Loon home. While sitting on the Loon one weekend reading 48 North, Rick saw an ad for a custom built Catamaran in Seattle. We were headed that way the following weekend to visit friends in Portland so Rick decided that he wanted me to see exactly what type of boat he was looking for. (I was looking for nothing having not a clue about boats) "All we'll do is look at it so you can see what I'm talking about" he said. We called to owners and made arrangements to meet them at the docks. Rick and I arrived early. We stood as the head of the dock looking down on what looked to me like a giant of a boat! In my mind there was no way we could handle that big of a boat, but that was ok as we were just looking, right?! The owners showed up and we took a tour. Rick crawled all over the boat, inside lockers, hanging upside down in some places. Me, I just gawked, I didn't even know what I was looking at half the time.  After the tour the four of us sat down to talk. The three of them talked 'sailboat talk' for a while, then Rick leaned over and said "how much can you get from your ATM?"  (what happened to Just Looking?) The upshot, we put a down payment on it, went back the next weekend and did the sea trial and brought it home to Coos Bay Labor Day weekend 2002, four weeks after "just looking". And so, TIGGER, formally known as Light Years, became ours. The next two years were spent with Rick learning all the systems and quirks of TIGGER and I started the process of learning  what sailing was all about, beginning with the language!