SAILING AQUARIUS

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada.  My entire family would spend weekends on Lake Mead water skiing and hanging out at the various beaches on the lake.  I loved being on the water in the summer time, nice cool water in the desert heat, and listening to sound of his ski carving through the morning glass!   After graduation from the University of Texas, Austin with degree in Electrical Engineering,  I moved to San Diego and worked as an engineer at General Dynamic for 5 years.  Then one day, out of the blue, I received a call from my college roommate. “Yo Ken, let's go backpack around the world for a year!”  A few months later I had left General Dynamics and caught a plane to Japan, my first stop on what I thought would be a World backpacking tour.  I still believe that was the best decision of my life!   Traveling changed the way I thought about other cultures and about myself.   9 months later I returned to California broke, and with a bit of credit card debt, but my outlook on life had been changed forever.  I went to Los Angeles and worked on Satellites at TRW, then took another job selling parts to the Southern California engineering community.  After 3 years in LA I returned to San Diego and joined a few friends that started a company called KSA.  We worked together for over 25 years building KSA.  I would say it’s more fun to start and build a company, than to run one.  Together, we started another company, QPAR USA, and then I also tried creating my own product, a pet feeder.  Though there was no big successes, thankfully there were no big failures, just a lot of learning experiences. 

I would say, it’s just nice being in Southern California where I could spend the weekends at the beach surfing, and spend nights playing basketball at the UCSD RIMAC center.  Robert and I would boast of the night, played ball together from 6:00PM ’til 12:30AM.  We won 14 games in a row without a loss on the A court.  I couldn’t walk the next day.

After Zivile and I had been married for about 6 years, we discussed making a big change, and travel the world together.  First we talked about renting our home in Encinitas and travel by plane, and various ground transportation, but over time a sailing vessel entered the discussions. 

My sailing experience was minimal - before taking the helm of Aquarius in January 2017.  It totaled two sailing courses including just 8 days of sailing, and 5 years crewing on several sailing vessels during local San Diego races.   The last few years of my racing career my friends Karl and Christina purchased a 37 Hanse and named her Alacrity.   Our best race was the 2016 San Diego to Ensenada race where Alacrity placed 1st in Cruising Class.  All aboard, Captain and Crew, had an awesome time during the race!

Most plans are not realized without some major event, or events, to push them to reality.  In my case, there were several events that all happened within 6 months.  Zivile was made redundant at her corporate job, a close friend passed with cancer, and then the doctors warned me of a few health issues that might be life changing in the near future.  Both Zivile and I pushed plan forward, and it quickly became reality when we left the US on January 24th, 2017.

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