What can I say about us?
We both grew up in a river town, the same river town in fact, and never knew each other. We literally lived 2 blocks away and never knew the other in a town of 3,500 people. We had plenty of friends in common but since I went to the public school in town and he went to the private school in the town across the river, we never met. Our moms even went to the same pediatrician while we were growing up. THAT'S how small of a town it was. His family moved away when we were in elementary school and back to town right before our senior year in high school. And that's when we met. I won't say it was love at first sight, but 13 years later, here we are. How's that for karma?
Josh joined the US Navy in 2000 and part way through, decided to attend the Naval Academy. There he joined the sailing team. He sailed to Bermuda then to Maine on American Promise with his crew mates. Since then his love of sailing has only grown. When we moved to San Diego in 2004, we purchased a Catalina 22 from a retired Navy man and kept her in a slip in on the Silver Strand south of Coronado. Many weekends and week nights were spent tooling around in San Diego Bay. When his time in the Navy ended, we moved back to the midwest and our little Catalina was purchased by another young couple.
Josh taught sailing with Chicago Sails for a season out of Belmont Harbor to scratch his sailing itch and had a great summer. He was able to teach many willing pupils while there.
In 2012, we purchased Interlude. Since then she's been berthed in Racine, Wisconsin and Josh has spent countless hours on projects aboard her. Plenty of time has gone into learning the ins and outs of her oddities under sail as well as at the dock.
I, Ann, had no sailing experience before I knew Josh. I can actually remember him telling me while we were dating that he wanted to learn to sail. He is the type of person who can pick up a book or sleuth things out on the internet and understand exactly how something works from a practical perspective and before even setting foot onto a sailboat can put you completely at ease. While he was at the Academy I had my first tastes of sailing. I'm not going to lie, but sailing made me sleepy. Not that I found it boring, I just literally felt sleepy while aboard. That says something, right? A natural sailor feels calm aboard a boat, I think. And I did. So when we moved to San Diego and we found the Catalina, I was ecstatic. A small boat like the 22 was a great way to learn the basics in a practical way. I read "Basic Keelboat" several years before in college at Josh's suggestion and had the concepts down. I will tell you that there is nothing quite so exhilarating as being at the helm of your very own boat for the first time. I probably spent more time out on the Catalina than Josh. We were constantly having visitors and she was small enough that I could single hand her if needed. I'd take anyone and everyone out if they wanted. Yep. I loved that little boat.
Fast forward to living in Chicago in 2010 and I got the itch again. We'd always planned to sail away but after so many brutal winters, I couldn't take it anymore. I encouraged Josh to begin the search for a cruising boat. We looked casually at first, then with more fervor once we saw what we could get for our money. We saw boats in Illinois, Wisconsin and even Michigan. Interlude was among the first we saw when we started to get serious but at the time, she was priced WAY out of our budget and didn't even have an engine. When we finally got serious, turns out she was still on the market and just a honey of a vessel. Josh did all the technical fieldwork in scouting her, but to me, she just felt like home and luckily, our offer was accepted. The rest, is the beginning of our history.
