Re-United Again on St John, Aboard Sadie Sea

On a Mooring Honey Moon Beach, Water Island, St Thomas USVI

Life is strange. Take the story of Tom & Amy Larson, me, their sailboat Sandpiper, and now their Charter business on St John, Sadie Sea Charters. I'm not even sure where to begin and fear I may not have the writing skills to make all the connections. But here it goes.

My memory can be a little fuzzy with dates and times, but what follows is the gist. Cica 1999, I had owned Christa for about a year and had just transferred from Lake Tahoe CA to the San Francisco Bay Area. I had just arrived to my new slip at the Travis Sailing Center in Sausalito Ca when I bumped into Tom who had berthed Sandpiper at the same marina. Tom and I were instant amigos yapping about boat stuff and sailing and what not. An abnormal period of time had gone by when we both discovered in a conversation that we both were in the Coast Guard and the same rate and rank. Simply never came up in conversation. That was wild. During this time Tom began wooing Amy Sherman (Now Mrs. Larson and First Mate Amy). Tom worked a phat job on the Pacific Strike Team and traveled all the time and I worked in a Command Center, so we didn't see each other all the time. That all changed  in 2003 when Tom transfered to the ship I was stationed on. Not only were we on the same ship, but still the same rate and rank and now Tom was to take over my division and I moved to the Chief of the Navigation division. Weird. Even weirder that we ended up sharing a two man stateroom. True amigos now.

All the while talk of sailing and retirement permeated. Tom & Amy retired in 2005 sailed west around the planet. I was released from active duty in Oct 2007 and retired February 1st 2008. So it was with great anticipation that Christa and Sandpiper shared the same anchorage in St Lucia in March 2009.

Rewind my life to January/February 2008 and you will find me in Luperon Dominican Republic, with low morale after a shelacking between Turks & Caicos and a blown rear seal on the Yanmar. It was both difficult and thrilling to be in the Dom Rep with all the other cruisers. But replacing the rear seal and ensuring it was done correctly was very stressful. Transmission fluid was still slaying after I had hired a Frenchman to replace the seal. Enter Casey from St John, a younger fellow who was delivering a big Cat to St John. What a champ this guy has turned out to be. I tell him my woes and one day he stops by and says lets pull the coupler apart and see what's going on. Within 15 minutes, with the shaft packing gushing water into the boat, while studying the exploded view in the Yanmar Service Manual, Casey says, "this piece is in backward." What? A couple of turns of the wrench later we were shipshape and testing everything out. He refused any form of payment and just said "pay it forward."

Then Casey says when you get to St John look me up and and I'll introduce you to Ben who owns the Sadie Sea, and needs a relief skipper. At the time I fully intended on getting to St John within a month or so, but that all changed when I plunked down the anchor in Salinas Puerto Rico. That is a whole other saga. So a year or so later I showed up in St John and Casey was true to his word. I ended up running the Sadie Sea for a month or so before that fell through. Again another set of sagas.

But while I was doing my Sadie thing, I had been briefing Tom & Amy on Sandpiper, who were in Gibralter waiting to cross the Atlantic. So they had a clue about the Sadie Sea, but not a big clue. They had plans to head to Charleston and seek some employment or buy a business. But then they fell into the St John orbit. It's strong. They had just arrived and were bar side when they bumped into Ben, owner of the Sadie Sea, not long after Casey came saundering in and the circle was rapidly closing. Tom and Amy bought Sadie Sea last July from Ben and now call St John home.

So yesterday, I took the inter island ferry over to St John and there was Tom & Amy waving on the dock, Sadie sitting on her mooring right next to Sandpiper. So Tom & Amy let me Co- Captain for a reef bay run to the south side of St John to pick up National Park Hikers. Back in the saddle, but not with Capt Ben, but now with Amy and Tom. Like I said life is strange.

Capt Chris