A little bit about us:
I’m Derick. I was born and raised in North Vancouver BC. I grew up as a typical Canadian kid played hockey, skied and my family had a cabin on a lake and boats. The neighbouring families at the cabin had boats, so I spent my summers paddling, rowing, motoring and dinghy sailing. Eventually the boats got a bit bigger and waterskiing came into play. The boats got larger still when I worked at a marina while in high school and college and later in my career even sold boats for a local dealership for a while. Clearly they are my obsession.
From a young age I have always wanted to explore. A road trip to see what’s there. A boat trip to see what that place looks like. A job as a truck driver to drive from one side of the country to the other. Why not sail to far off destinations?
I’m Barb. I grew up in Port Moody BC. I too spent my summers at the lake except my boating experiences, prior to Derick, consisted only of canoes and rowboats.
I love sailing because the views are always changing. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the lake but after spending all my summers on the same wharf, exploring new places is very appealing.
In the one of the twists of fate that often shape lives, both Barb’s family and mine bought cabins on the same lake. Not only that but our parents went to school with each other in a small town in BC. Upon learning that Barb’s family were owners of a cabin at the other end of the lake, we all hopped in the boat to go and say hi. I was sixteen at the time and was very impressed by what I saw. Not the cabin but the girl in the bikini on the dock. Barb and I have been together since.
Shortly after we were married, we took sailing lessons in Vancouver to acquire the certifications to allow us to charter. Little did we know what this would lead to. We had many great holidays exploring the Pacific Northwest on a variety of chartered power and sailboats. June 2009 we acquired Stray Cat and have been cruising the local waters ever since.
You are reading through our site so you now know the plan has us heading farther afield. Follow us in our blog section as we share our adventure. We will share the good and the not so good in an attempt to give a fair and balanced account of our journey.
We appreciated reading other blogs while we set in motion our plan. We hope our site will encourage others with the same dream.