About Us

Despite being born in Florida and 2nd-12th grades in S. Texas, I am pure Californian at heart. I did 2 years of college in LA, then meandered around Norcal from Monterey to San Carlos before settling down to graduate from UC Santa Cruz in 2001. I lived in San Francisco from 2003 (minus a 7-month stint in Africa) to 2014 when I moved onto my new-to-me boat in Emeryville.

There have been lots of varied chapters in my adult life…the “skydiving years”, “the party+Burningman years”, “the metal art+Burningman years”, Africa ?, lots of solo-travelling adventures, and of course, sailing. I had done a bit of sailing in college and hopped on the odd boat while backpacking in the S. Pacific, but it wasn’t “a thing” until late 2004 when I was returning from a short trip in Belize and Guatemala. I was frustrated with having to cram a trip into my work-allotted 2-week vacation, how expensive hostels had gotten, and the slight but ever-present danger of being a woman travelling alone. I needed to figure out a way to travel with my home and on a much longer-term basis. This left 2 options: RV or sailboat. I flipped to the back of the United magazine and looked at the map with their spiderweb of destinations…pretty much everywhere I was interested in going had a coastline, so sailing was the obvious choice. There and then on the plane I decided I would learn to sail, buy a boat, and cross the Pacific by myself (for starters). When I got home I picked a sailing school (Club Nautique) and started classes in January. Thankfully, I took to it, and by the following Spring was wrapping up my US Sailing Coastal Passagemaking Certification.

I wasn’t fond of his advice at the time, but my sailing instructor Arnstein (yes, that’s his real name) had some great words of wisdom: “Jen, don’t buy a boat right away. Sail on other people’s boats as long as you can. Log lots of blue-water miles, get a feel for what you like/don’t like in boats, and save money.” Arnstein was also a delivery skipper who culled crew from his classes, so I signed on for a San Diego – San Francisco trip, IN APRIL. For the uninitiated, that route is some of the most challenging sailing you can do in American waters. You are fighting strong wind and current the whole way, in chilly conditions, and there are a few nasty points that can be quite dangerous. There’s good reason owners pay for the delivery rather than sail up themselves. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but it was a really rough trip in several ways, and here again Arnstein said something that stuck with me. I was steering through my 2am night watch, my body shivering and fingers frozen around the tiller when he came up to check on me. With bottom lip quivering and on the verge of tears I stammered, “I don’t know if I can do this.” He shook his finger and got in my face, “Jen, look at me, if you can do this, you can do anything.”

He was right. I now have about 8500 miles under my belt, including several more coastal trips and 2 crossings (Caribbean and Pacific). I bought what I hoped would be my forever(ish) boat in mid-2013 and started prepping her for the solo sailing I was by then desperately craving, but it seems fate does not want me to be a singlehander. Enter Harry.

Outside of all this, for the last several years of work I was a Product Manager in energy efficiency software and a Certified Measurement & Verification Professional.  I am also a welder (mig, tig, stick – steel, stainless and aluminum), seamstress (for everything boat-related, not clothing), fire dancer, retired divemaster and skydiver, mediocre snowboarder, very poor bowler, and budding ukulele player.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jen found Tuxie McLovin (her adopted name) through a no-kill foster program in Marin around March 2013. She had been hit by a car, rescued by a good Samaritan, and thankfully had no injuries. She was thought to be about 1, and given the delightful little stump of a tail, a Manx. I had never met a cat so friendly with strangers and fell in love instantly.

The Manx breed tends to be very dog-like and Tux is a dog trapped in a cat’s body who thinks she is human. I’ve taught her to sit, high-five, sit-up-pretty, roll over, play dead (“bang!”), jump through hoops and straight up walls, and most importantly to use the toilet. (See old blog post for all the details). She is incredibly social, vocal (sometimes too vocal!), and affectionate.

We moved onto my boat after about a year in my San Francisco apartment and she took to it well (except for engine-on – I suspect that will always be an issue). You may be wondering if she ever gets off the boat – I have trained her not to with tough love. If I catch her on the dock I toss her into the drink (then fish her out, rinse & dry her, etc.). It’s not much more than ~once a year these days. She loves basking in the sun in the cockpit and keeping birds off the deck. Despite her supposed ship’s-cat lineage, she has shown no promise as a mouser thus far (ask me to tell you that story some time), but she earns her keep in snuggles and company.

“All the slips in all the world, and he had to sail into the one next to mine…”. Thankfully it wasn’t love at first sight, otherwise no one would ever believe me, but he did quite literally sail into the slip next to mine at Emery Cove. He was helping his buddy, Mike, bring his boat home, and his boat happened to be the same as mine, a Niagara 35. They figured they could steal parts off my boat, and when they checked in the harbormaster told them they had made a good choice as a “cute girl lived on the boat next door”. Harry was loud, talked to much, and was way too hyper for my taste. I was also dating someone at the time. But he kept coming around to help Mike with his boat, and after awhile (and breaking up with other dude) he kinda grew on me. One evening I texted Mike asking if Harry was single (yes), and could he please let him know that I was inquiring. 3 days later, Harry showed up with wine he had made and fresh vegetables from his garden, and we started hanging out.

The way he tells it, he blew off the notion of me at first, despite Mike’s pestering… he had too much going on between work and work on his boat. But he laid awake on that 2nd night saying “What am I doing?! She’s cute, smart, wants all of the same things I want, has skills, etc.” So he decided to give it a shot. (Free welding services on his steel boat may have also been a small factor ;-))

4 months later we were up in Tahoe with his family for Christmas, and after asking both of us separately if we were each other’s “the one”, his cousin’s wife April started hinting around us getting married, soon. We went skiing/snowboarding with Jake & April on December 28, 2014. At lunch she was suggesting a night wedding-run to Reno. By the last run of the day she was hollering at us on the chair lift, “YOU GUYS SHOULD GET MARRIED!” We got off the lift and were getting ready to head down when a dude on the 3rd chair behind us skied over and said, “Does someone here need to get married? I just got internet-ordained.”  All jaws dropped. Harry looked at me with eyes that said, “ya wanna?” and I smiled and nodded. He grabbed one of April’s rings, I kicked off my board, and he went down on one knee. When he stood up the “minister” asked the questions and pronounced us husband and wife. (We got married again the next day at city hall to make it legal, and a third time that summer for friends. Eventually we’ll have another for the family :-))