Crew of "Sand Dollar"

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Lisa
 

Cade

Likes to socialize and organize; never met a stranger. Graduated from Murray State University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry in 1981. Started her career as a chemist, but soon shifted to more personal relations-oriented lines of work:

Lisa has had a United States Coast Guard Merchant Marine, Officer Masters License, since 1990.

After a thrilling 20 years of work in some fascinating jobs, she set off in command of her own vessel to explore the seven seas – at least the warm parts of them – and more importantly, meet the others who are similarly inclined. She and Cade departed from St. Petersburg in April 2001 and spent 15 months sailing around the western Caribbean and winding up in Maracaibo for a while. After testing the waters of teaching in Maracaibo for a year by substitute teaching on occasion, she accepted a one-year teaching assignment for the 2003-2004 school year at Escuela Bella Vista as a middle-school science teacher.

Lisa began sailing in 1987 after she and Cade bought a 1967 Morgan 24 sailboat, “Sea Ya Bye” on Lake Lanier northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. She served a year as the Ladies Racing Commodore for the Southern Sailing Club at Lake Lanier and participated in the Adams Cup competition in the Dixie Inland Yacht Racing Association in 1988 and 1989.

In 1990, Lisa and Cade moved to Florida and began regular racing as crew. Lisa sailed on dozens of others’ boats all around Tampa Bay while a member of the Davis Island Yacht Club and the Tampa Sailing Squadron. After seven years of racing her own boat and others on a regular basis, she and Cade moved aboard their own boat and sold the house in 1997. After this move, racing activities dropped considerably as most spare time was devoted to preparing “Sand Dollar” for cruising.

Lisa is learning to play guitar, and spends a lot of time working on bead projects such as necklaces, earrings, bracelets, eyeglass keepers. She has also been dabbling in water color painting and charcoal sketching in the past year.

Likes challenges, novelty, and complexity. Enjoys solving problems. Graduated from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering in 1983. Spent the next 18 years in various environmental consulting engineering jobs:

  • Jordan, Jones & Goulding – project engineer in municipal and industrial water and wastewater systems consulting
  • Lockwood Greene Engineers – industrial wastewater and environmental compliance consulting
  • Law Environmental (later Law/Gibb Group; now possibly defunct?) – health and safety and environmental remediation consulting
  • Missimer & Associates (later ViroGroup; now defunct) – environmental remediation consulting and office management; a chance to work with Lisa.
  • Enviro-Logical Solutions – environmental site remediation consulting; worked with Lisa again.
  • Blasland Bouck and Lee – environmental site remediation consulting

He obtained registration as a Professional Engineer in the states of Georgia, Florida, and later in Mississippi, Maryland, Delaware, and Louisiana due to project work in these states. After an enjoyable but ultimately tiresome career as an engineer, he retired in March 2001 and went sailing. Then the stock market took an unnerving dip in 2002 and spooked him back into the working world for a brief time in Maracaibo, Venezuela as a school teacher. He taught high school sciences in the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 school years at Escuela Bella Vista, an international school there in western Venezuela. In June 2004 after the school year was competed, he returned to cruising in the Caribbean.

He started sailing in 1986 when Lisa bought him lessons from Rob James at Lake Lanier. He bought a boat in 1987 – a Morgan 24 sloop and soon took up racing with the Southern Sailing Club. After a few successful years of racing on the lake, he began to feel confined and yearned for wider waters.

In 1990, he and Lisa moved to Florida and began crewing for others at Davis Island Yacht Club. A year or so later, they moved the Morgan 24 to Tampa Bay, but he and Lisa continued to spend much of their sailing time crewing for others. In 1994, they moved to Apollo Beach, Florida where they could have the Morgan in a slip at their home. They diverted their attention from the big boat racing of DIYC to more dinghy racing at Tampa Sailing Squadron. A couple of years later they sold the Morgan and bought “Sand Dollar” but this immediately prompted them to sell the house to eliminate debt and facilitate their early retirement. In 1997 they moved aboard “Sand Dollar” and moved to the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina where they spent the next four year preparing for their April 2001 departure to the western Caribbean.

Cade has written some articles for sailing magazines, works on LED lighting projects for Sand Dollar and occasionally other boats, snorkels and spearfishes whenever he has a chance, and plays chess when he finds amiable competition.

Teka - a Miniature Manga Spaniel

Teka

A lovely "Miniature Manga Spaniel" joined the crew in November 2005 in Cartagena, Colombia.

Teka has not confided to the rest of the crew about her mysterious past:  Was she cast aside by another mariner?  Did she become separated from her people during the wild Colombian Independence Day activities of early November?  Was she abandoned by a ruthless estate executor when her doting matron finally fell and could not get up? We will never know, but she clearly finds boat life agreeable.

She slips on the deck sometimes, chews the wrong ropes occasionally, and is not inclined to bark like a watch-dog but only when excited by playing; however, she is great company, doesn't mind going to the bathroom on the foredeck instead of being taken ashore, only eats about one cup of dry dog food per day, and happily wakes Lisa each morning to see the lovely sunrise.

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