Their first boat was a Coronado 15 dingy (complete with trapeze) that they sailed and raced on Lake Washington. Their next boat was Phoenix, a 26 ft. Thunderbird racing/cruising boat, perhaps the penultimate Pacific NW sailboat. They raced the T-Bird three days a week and cruised it as far north as Desolation Sound in British Columbia. Their two children, Christa and Brad, loved to pull the spinnaker out of the bag and make a “fort” in the forepeak while they were cruising.

With the kids off to college they moved up to a Catalina 36, one of the best coastal cruisers ever built. They cruised Endless Summer all over Puget Sound and British Columbia for over ten years.

In 2010 Walter retired from a career in high tech and Meryl, a former Pan Am flight attendant, retired from United Airlines at the end of 2012. Following a lifelong dream, they purchased a Taswell 44 sailboat in Fort Lauderdale (ironically it was formerly a Seattle boat) and departed St. Petersburg, FL in January 2012 on an open-ended journey around the world.