Starting Tim and Kathy's Great Adventure



Sea Fever at home on Lake Pepin, Minnesota

Sailors are dreamers.  They sometimes dream of getting away from the work a day world and sail their boat on a wonderfully huge lake called Lake Pepin.  It is in Minnesota, and a big lake on the Mississippi River.  Some change that dream as we have, and decide to take the rivers down from Lake Pepin to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.  There is a whole tour, called the circle loop, which ends back in Minnesota, going up the east coast of the US, and ending in Lake Superior.  We are taking the "Half Loop",

Tim started his first circle tour in 1996 and took this on by himself, but with his faithful cat, Tristan. This year, starting in early September, 2014, he is doing the Half Loop with his Life Partner, Kathy,  taking Tristan's place.  Kathy will be as faithful, perhaps more verbal (although a cat who lived most of her life in a condo and is suddenly thrust in to a life at sea was pretty verbal) and hopefully will be able to read charts and steer the boat better than said Tristan!

It has been a busy, and an expensive, endeavor to get Sea Fever up to snuff.  She has been a great sailboat, but has been used mostly for lake sailing on Lake Pepin.  Last year she sported a new look... the tanbark sails that you see in the picture.  After 25 years with the original white sails, the crisp new Mack sails along with the MackPack systems make an amazing difference in how she handles.

For those of you who don't know what a MackPack is, it is a system whereby the sails "live" in a sail cover, that unzips on the top when the sails are to be hoisted, and the sails fall into the cover when they are lowered.  No big deal, right?  Well, standing on the top of the cabin, tying the sails down, while still at sea, is not the most pleasant of sailing tasks. Tim has been responsible for tying the sails down, and Kathy wishes he had his life jacket on. So the mackpac  system is a great addition to Sea Fever.

A bit about us.  We are both in our 60's. Kathy grew up sailing on a very small boat at her parent's Minnesota cabin.  On Saturday mornings, her dad would wake her up as he headed out to go golfing and she would sail the morning away.

Tim is a veteran sailor, and has owned Sea Fever for all of her life.  He is a raconteur, and loves to talk about his colorful adventures.  And, by and large, folks like to listen.

We live in St. Paul, Minnesota, about 100 feet off the Mississippi. Our life in the winter is settling in in our townhouse.  Come February, Tim enjoys surfing the internet and peruse the boat product catalogs. That will change in early September!!!

We are excited to go on this adventure.  As Tim says, someday, you just have to decide to go.  Not everything will be perfect, but we will be safe and together.


Thank you for reading.