Bob

Bob at the wheel

Bob is an old friend of the Skipper. He got interested in sailing when he was a younger man as well. Then, sometime in the mid 80s while browsing the docks in Honolulu he up and signed on to a crew that was to deliver a boat from Hawaii to the Far East. He'd never sailed the open ocean before.

Since then Bob has accumulated quite a bit of blue water sailing experience. He's owned and lived on his own boat, sailed the entire west coast of the US and made the trip between the US mainland and Hawaii the hard way ... from the islands to Washington.

Among Bob's sea experiences is the unhappy sinking of a fishing boat he was working on. Bob, and two others were caught off the coast of Kauai by Hurricane Iniki in 1992. The boat sank and the other two crew members were never found. Bob survived by hanging on to a piece of flotsam that floated free from the boat as it sank. Among other flotsam that floated free of the boat was an emergency beacon (an EPIRB) that drifted pretty much in the same pattern as Bob. The Coast Guard detected the EPIRB signal, launched a search and, after 24 hours in the water, Bob was rescued by a CG helicopter.

Bob left us when we returned home for a visit in July. He went to Thailand for one reason or another then on to Hawaii where he decided to stay for a while. He is helping his son Lance ("Ance" to those of us who have known him for a while) start up a new business in Honolulu.

Bob is an outstanding shipmate. Quick to laugh, slow to criticize, absolutely determined to contribute ... three pretty strong attributes rarely combined in the same package.