LOVE ON THE WATER By the Seattle Sailing Committee
Sailing in Puget Sound. Photo by Alan Vogt.
In continuation of our article Belationships, Packmances, and Nature-Loves from our spring 2022 edition, we thought it fitting for summer to showcase two stories from Mountaineers sailors who met their partners on the open water. After all, what’s more romantic than the Salish Sea?
Megan & Walter By Walter Friesen, 16-year member
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006 was the year Megan Bond and I met. She was a Mountaineers member who usually concentrated on climbing and hiking, but had decided to take The Mountaineers Sailing Course. At that time it was run by Hal Tobie, who booked two bare-boat charters in Croatia in late August for Mountaineers sailors. Megan liked sailing and traveling, so she signed up. As it happened, Hal was not able to fill all of the available slots with Mountaineers, so he asked me if I wanted to go. Hal and I had been friends for several years, and even though I had a powerboat at the time, he knew I liked to sail. Having never been to Croatia, I got a Mountaineers membership and signed on for the trip. One of my first memories of Megan in Croatia was the provisioning run that she did on behalf of the crew before we left the port. I don’t remember exactly what we asked her to get, but I do remember telling her to be sure not to forget the beer. When she returned, she had some bread, cheese, various sundries, what looked like a case of yogurt, and a six-pack of
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beer. Obviously she needed some education about me and beer! We sailed all over the Dalmation Islands, touring Roman ruins, docking in medieval towns, touring wineries, hiking across islands to see what was on the other side, and having a generally fabulous time. Megan and I hit it off as friends and decided to continue that friendship when we got back to the real world. Back in Seattle, we’d go skiing together and have coffee or lunch once in a while. In early 2008, Megan teamed up with three expert skiers for a backcountry ski trip to the Carpathians in Romania. She was a decent intermediate skier, but she was concerned about being able to keep up with the guys. Knowing from experience that I was a lousy intermediate skier, she asked me if I wanted to keep her company. I readily agreed. We had a fabulous time skiing all over Romania, and when our compatriots returned home, we carried on together through northern Romania and then on to Budapest. Our relationship blossomed as we journeyed through Hungary. As I like to say, we fell in “like”
