When my wife, DeeDee, and I set out to buy our first “big” boat, the biggest boat I had ever captained was 21 feet. Our goal was to find an affordable boat large enough to spend a few nights on. I wanted to fish from this boat, and I knew overnight trips including my wife [...]
Cruising the Islands of the Bahamas
One of the neatest parts of boating is the freedom to go anywhere you want—provided you have deep enough water. The feeling of standing behind the wheel, master of your destiny, is sure to chase away the challenges of day-to-day life. One past summer, our boat, Vixen, was already positioned in Tampa for its annual [...]
Corporate Expense Policies You (won’t) Want to Consider
When on business travel, I would often write to fill the time. This is the product of one such trip in which you might detect that I was quite bored. I swear that this was written and circulated at the company as a joke… well, sort of. MEMO From: Frank Wilem TO: All Employees [...]
Finding Heaven in Green Canyon
To me, each offshore bluewater trip is special in its own way. But perhaps my favorite was one we made on Vixen to Green Canyon with my daughter Brittany. Green Canyon is an area 120 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River where the water is some 3-7000 feet deep. On the way out [...]
I love the ocean
I love the ocean. I love being near it, I love being on it, and I love being in it. Born in the Midwest, I didn’t get my first look at the ocean for quite a while. But even as an infant, I loved the water. After I learned to walk, the first time my [...]
Arctic Adventure
I was only a year out of college – old enough to get my first engineering job, but young enough to still be clueless about the world – when my opportunity to visit the Arctic presented itself. I was working for the offshore oil exploration group of Texas Instruments’ Geophysical Services Division, designing electronics. That’s [...]
Spider Wars
I’ve never been a big fan of spiders. Some people loathe snakes; others are afraid of birds or various other animals. But my nemesis was always spiders. I recall walking through the woods as a young boy and seeing a web the size of one of those nets the NFL uses to catch field goal [...]
Adventures in Moving
During my early college years, I could move everything I owned in a vitamin-C orange (that was Plymouth’s name for the high-impact color) 1970 Barracuda, whose trunk was only 50% larger than the glove box. But as I acquired more “stuff” and then got married, I graduated to renting U-Haul trailers to make such moves. [...]
My First of Four Loves: The Sea
I’ve had four loves in my life. I’m a very lucky man. The first was the sea. I wasn’t raised by the ocean, I regret to say. But from the time I can remember, I felt her call. I felt it when I visited relatives who lived near Hampton Roads in Virginia, and my uncle [...]
Locked Out at the Lighthouse
I was glad to hear recently that they are building back Port Eads. For those of you unfamiliar with this place, it may not be at the end of the earth, but you can see it from there. Seriously, Port Eads is about 20 miles south of Venice, LA beyond the Head of Passes just [...]
