Dave and I were classmates together in college, Webb Institute of Naval Architecture in Glen Cove, New York. So we’ve been friends since June 1973, over 41 years.

We shared a similar backstory in school in that we were both from California. Somehow I rated the nickname The California Kid, even though he seemed to fit that better than I, having been born and raised (I’m pretty sure) right there in Ocean Beach. I am a navy brat, so came from all over the place and only earned the west coast appellation by way of the modestly tricked out VW square back I’d driven across country, …wooden bumpers, curtains in the back windows, carpeted back deck AND ceiling, and fancy stereo.

What can I share about Dave? He was smart and studious in college, though not so much so as to make him unreachable. Serious, but also with a dry sense of humor and a ready laugh. I knew he’d be a good offshore sailing companion, calm and steady and with enough experience to know pretty much what he was getting into. He certainly knew me well enough to know what HE was getting into as far as personalities went.

He’s surfed since he was 11 years old and I’ve always thought of him as a surfer dude. Funny thing about that is that I never really heard him use (what us non-surfers would thing of as) surfing lingo until he and Mary were chatting about the sport aboard Mabrouka. I can’t even resurrect any but the most straight forward terms like left and right breaks, but it was entertaining to hear the two of them get excited about the surfing conditions in Bahia Santa Maria.

Dave has inherited at least part of his dad’s real estate holdings in Ocean Beach. His sister has the other part and between the two of them they hold what amounts to a family compound consisting of four dwellings on two lots just a couple of blocks up from some of Dave’s favorite surfing spots at Sunset Cliffs. He’s taking a skilsaw and a paint brush to his properties there one at a time.

He’s also got a home in Bremerton, Washington. I remember going up there for job interviews many years ago and taking advantage of his hospitality. Man, was I impressed with his home with it’s expansive, bluff-top view over Port Orchard channel. That was part of what sealed the deal for me taking a job in the lovely Emerald State.

Technically I already knew this about him, but I was reminded that he’s also several types of an artist. First of all, he avidly pursues oil painting, something I understand to be a difficult medium requiring a lot of refined technique. What was particularly entertaining on the trip down was the revelation that he likes to write music. At one point there was a nautical turn of phrase that caught all our attention, “…the Tropic of Whetever…” Unlike the rest of us who threw it around occasionally in conversation, Dave picked it up and ran with it. Here are the lyrics to a song he came up with:

Tropic of Whatever

I was drinking in a bar down Cabo
She was steering the seat next ta' me
By her lines she looked as a cruiser
Kind of old school, sailin’ down by the lee

Bye n’ bye we got into talkin'
'Bout boats, n’ hopes and the sea
I could see she was a salt and not a poser
With trimmed phrases that didn't run free

As the earth spun the sun into the ocean
And the sky winked a coy green farewell
I got the nerve up to ask her
Her course was at the morning bell
She said "I'm bound for the Tropic of Whatever"
Sailin’ downwind; surfin’ the swell

I'm crossing the Tropic of Whatever
I’ll anchor where no one can tell
My rhumb line leads to Whatever
For I follow the the gull and the whale
Outbound for the Tropic of Whatever
Alone in my ship I shall sail