The year was 2013 and I was 13 years old. My little brother was 11 and my older brother was 16. These ages will become important later. My dad was a geologist working in the state, a little unusual for us because a lot of times, he wasn’t in geology or the state. He had come across a couple of sailing vlogs online that he had really enjoyed and then later sailing blogs. That was the beginning of all of it.

He loved the sailing blogs so much that he had decided that he wanted to give sailing a go. He liked boats, he thought sailing was neat, and he had several children who were just as much of lunatics as he was. However, at this time he hadn’t ever sailed, nor did we own a sailboat. In fact, we didn’t know anyone who did sail.

He will recount the story of calling my mom from a wellsite. He had decided he wanted to build a sailboat and called to tell her. She responded with “Do whatever you want.”

A little background information. We live in Wyoming, which is several thousand miles from the ocean. So it wasn’t that unusual to have no sailing buddies. Hence the reason that we were lunatics. As a landlocked state, the only people with sailboats, are the people with money. We didn’t have either.

Although we didn’t own a boat, we did have a few things. One was a canoe. The other were three kayaks my mom had bought super clearance-d out. The canoe had actually belonged to my great-grandfather. Therefore, it was a family heirloom. We thought it was keeping in with the spirit of him to use it to sail.

My dad had read about converting a canoe into a sail canoe and decided that was the path that he was going to go with. Thus, was the beginning of our landlocked sailing adventures. It’s been 6 years now and a lot of things have changed. The destruction of boats, the buying of a broken-down yacht, the purchasing of boat plans and a recent brush with death that has us all shaken.

Despite these factors, we haven’t given up on our sailing. In spite of the challenges thrown in our way and our location, we’re still sailing on. I suppose that is why we they call us lunatics.

Welcome to Sailing Frog.