User:Kolibrie
From CruisersWiki
Well, as of July 1st 2008, we’re both officially “retired” from our careers as an entrepreneur in the chemical manufacturing business and a secondary high school science teacher. We’ve officially closed up shop, put the textbooks away and have begun expanding our horizon aboard our 36 ft sailboat.
Wayne’s always held an avid interest in sailing and Pat’s always had an avid interest in rocks. Not a good combination if you think about it. But when the sailor takes the geologist sailing in the Virgin Islands and the San Juan Islands off of Washington State and the geologist also falls in love with the salt air (do you think that was his plan???) – you can bet we both decided we should try out the cruising life and needed to figure out if this was something we could make happen. The idea became more of a reality when we started seriously looking at boats and found one in Noank, Ct. For me it was love at first sight, and I knew that this was our boat.
Our original plan was, if Pat could get a sabbatical from teaching, we’d spend a year on the boat, setup oceanography studies along the way to share online with students and, if all went well, she’d return to teaching for another 3-5 years, then - go cruising. That plan fell through, but the idea was still there - to explore our surroundings via our boat, so after going over all the pros, cons, and questioning, “can we make this work?” … We decided that we weren’t getting any younger and that if we were going to do this, we had to make it happen.
The summer of 2007 we spent exploring various islands, ports and the North Channel while moving our boat around from southern Lake Michigan (our home for Kolibrie for 4 years) to Lake Erie. We used this time to see if we could live onboard for a couple of months and still maintain our sanity in close quarters. We did. So 2007 was a year of some soul searching, discussions and plans, which ended in Pat giving notice and ending her career as a teacher. So here we are…
We’re trying to stay flexible (as far as planning an agenda). Summer of 2008 we took the boat from Lake Erie through the Erie Canal (Tonawanda to Waterford); Then down the Hudson – short visit and holla to the Big Apple; Then the Chesapeake, and the inter-coastal waterway (aka the ICW, aka “The Ditch”). 2009 we discovered Bahamas cruising we're currently getting ready to explore some more of the Bahamas this year and possibly the Virgin Islands. It's been a learning experience that allows us to explore ourselves and our world.
