Maverick

Ah. Maverick. In 1995 I took a semester off from Washington State University & traveled around the Western United States with the PD guys, Kevin & Larry. I met up with them jumping in Pullman, Washington. We drove a motorhome from dropzone to dropzone. I packed, Kevin & Larry demoed PD gear. One of my favorite stops was Moab. A couple months into it I ran into Chris from Skydive AZ. A couple crazy nights in Star, Idaho & I said good-bye to Kevin & Larry & joined Chris flying one of the Skydive AZ twin otters around the boogie circuit.
It was great flying right seat in a twin otter as we flew across the United States. We flew to Denver & back to Eloy, AZ, stayed in the desert jumping for a couple weeks & flew off to Greely Co, Salt Lake City Ut, Lost Praire Mt, Quincy Il, Sturgus & back to Eloy. On a trip to Denver we picked up my buddy Big Doug & took him with us. We literly kidnapped him. I called the FBO in Durango & asked them to phone him & tell him to meet us at the airport just outside Crested Butte. He showed up. We landed, taxied, I put out the ladder as the airplane stopped for no more than 30 seconds. Doug jumped in & asked what was happening. Chris started rolling. I asked Doug if he wanted to go or stay...we will be back in 3 day's I promised. I shut the door looked at Doug, smiled & told Chris to hit it. Chris reached overhead pushed the throttle all the way forward & we were off to Denver. It took me about 2 minutes to convince Doug all would work out fine. I decided to stay in Colorado. Chris flew on, I wouldn't see him for several years. By then he was flying commuters in the Boston area.
Part of my summer was spent in Crested Butte. Since it was summer & there was no snow eveyrone met at the bar in the evening, the talk of the town. Here I heard about a group of people going to the Virgin Islands. I decided to go. A few months later I was running around the Caribbean on Maverick, the 100 ft. Brixham Trawler pictured above. One of the things the crew did on a regular base was to moon any boats passing by. If you look closely you can see this in the picture, which I found on the internet. Maverick survived three hurricanes, the biggest being Hurricane Marilyn, during 1996. The captain, Doris, stayed aboard during the hurricanes & kept her afloat, eighty seven sailboats were sunk or washed out to sea. Anchored off the Island of Jost Van Dyke, I spent new years 1995 - 1996 on Maverick. Everyone went to the island & it was my turn for watch. I was to be relieved at 10:00pm but let the other guys stay on the island all night & took over their watch. It was one of my favorite times in life. I accomplished my goal of running off to the Caribbean & working as a deckhand.