James IversonEver since I was a little boy I wanted a boat and to have adventureson the water. Even though my family had no nautical history andvery little money to invest in anything as frivolous as a boat, thedream persisted. In adulthood I read everything I cold about small boatvoyaging. I read many 'how-to' manuals explaining the physics of sailing.I became fl uent in the arcane technical language of sailors. Yet my liferemained land bound and I began to doubt if I ever would sail over thatmysterious horizon. We lived in the Florida Keys for eight years. One yearI bought a 12-foot aluminum fi shing boat with a 5 HP outboard for twohundred dollars. It was a boat that was made for small inland lakes and wasabsolutely unsuitable for the open water of the Keys. After scaring myselfand putting my young family in jeopardy I traded the boat to a local fi shermanfor some lobster tails.In the early nineties after being sideswiped by Hurricane Andrew, wemoved north to Milwaukee and our financial situation improved. In 1998, Ibought a small sailboat offered by a business acquaintance. Jill and I took sailingcourses at the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center and our sailing life began.Retirement allowed us to expand our sailing horizons; sailing with friendsin the Caribbean and spending months at a time sailing the Great Lakes. I amby nature a rather introverted, cerebral guy and while not a man of faith, myconnection to the natural world is as close to a religious experience as I will everhave. For me traveling on the water is the most real interaction I can have withnature including its peacefulness, sublime beauty, and sometimes its terror. Read More Read Less