If you have been a tenant of Elliott Bay Marina for at least 2 years, then you probably have run into or talked with Andy Stephens on occasion. Andy was an Elliott Bay staff member while he finished his degree at Seattle University. Instead of joining the work force after graduation, he decided he would set sail upon his 30′ Cape Dorey and start his life long dream of sailing around the work. Below is a little back story on Andy and a link to his website where you follow him along on his journey through his GPS tracker, blog posts, photos, and videos.
“Having grown up living on the Puget Sound, I grew accustom to activities on or around the water at a very young age as most do who are from this region of the world. This familiarity of boats and water is what ultimately led me to serving in the Coast Guard after high school.
In the Coast Guard I learned everything there was to know about boats; maintenance, navigation, and general seamanship were some of the skills I acquired. I transferred those skills into a commercial captain’s license upon leaving the Coast Guard and spent the next couple years traveling and surfing all over the world. I returned to Seattle in 2013, where I bought my first sailboat and enrolled into Seattle University to study business economics. Although school was definitely rewarding, it was this new passion of sailing that really captivated me. Having to use every life/nautical skill to be totally self-sustainable creates a feeling of completeness that I have not gotten anywhere else…when I am sailing, there is no future or past, there is only that present moment.
During college I honed my sailing expertise in the hopes of one day realizing my dream of sailing around the world. To prepare for this, I made several difficult passages including two trips around Vancouver Island and one passage to Ketchikan, Alaska. Although I always dreamt of casting off my lines after college, I didn’t know if I would actually do it. Having to give up every form of security in order to follow a dream is truly a frightening endeavor. However, in the spring of 2016, and after much deliberation after having had several jobs offered to me in the finance industry; I instead chose to cast off those lines and follow my dream.”
