Mike and Carol Parker
We embarked on a cruising lifestyle in 2004 when we surprised ourselves by unexpectedly purchasing the sailboat Raven, a bluewater cruiser capable of crossing oceans. In 2010 we sold Raven and boarded the powerboat AVATAR, continuing our ocean adventures through 2016, when our cruising lifestyle finally reached the closing chapter.
The years we spent traveling aboard both these extraordinary boats were truly life changing. This blog was created and maintained both as a journal for us to remember our adventures by, but also to share them with family, friends, and anyone who loves the ocean.
Mike learned to sail in Boston and competed on MIT’s varsity sailing team. Carol started her sailing career on Lake Lagunita as a freshman at Stanford University. There she met Mike on a Valentine’s Day when he hitched a ride aboard her Flying Junior. During the early years of our marriage, we raced small boats, primarily Snipes but also Mobjacks and 505s, on the Chesapeake and in the San Francisco Bay area. We also had the opportunity to crew aboard larger yachts during weekend races.
Not so coincidentally, for many years we were neighbors and very good friends of Steve and Linda Dashew, renowned designers of ocean-going cruising yachts. Raising a family, careers and other hobbies had taken us away from the water for decades, not to mention living in the Arizona desert. But eventually the Dashews reignited our interest as we learned more and more about their innovative approach to cutting edge high performance yacht design.
In the real world Mike is known as Dr. Parker, a PhD with electrical engineering and computer science degrees from MIT and Stanford, and founder of Rincon Research Corporation in Tucson, Arizona. In addition he is an avid pilot of both power planes and gliders, who garnered two world distance records in his World Class PW5 sailplane. He is semi-retired, which means he works full-time when we’re home and not at all (theoretically) when we were off cruising the ocean blue.
Carol over the years has had a variety of interests, including raising and showing top winning miniature schnauzers (under the Skyline kennel prefix) and for the past 35 years has been involved in the equestrian world exhibiting hunters and jumpers competing under her Cross Creek Farms stable name. Currently she pursues photography obsessively, focusing on nature, wildlife, and of course the travel opportunities provided by life on the cruising boats. She promotes her work under the name of Carol Brooks Parker Photography.
Captain Rod Bradley
Rod Bradley, captain of both Raven and AVATAR, is a native of New Zealand. He came aboard Raven in early 2003 when she still belonged to her previous owners, and remained with the boat when we acquired her in 2004. When we made the transition to power and launched AVATAR, Rod stayed with us and continued to mastermind our adventures until our cruising years ended in 2016.
Most serious cruising couples run away from home to live on their vessel full-time. Mike and I, due to other obligations, were not able to commit to that lifestyle. Instead we relied on Rod to reside aboard our boat, maintain it in peak condition, fix what broke (always something!) and show us a good time when we did escape and could take a few weeks for a new adventure.
Rod’s superior seamanship is enhanced by in-depth knowledge of boat and systems technology, expertise as a certified SCUBA divemaster, culinary prowess in the galley, and a host of other talents – all packaged with an insatiable thirst for travel and new experiences. His competence, enthusiasm and yen to travel the world (at least warmer climates where coconut palms grow) opened vistas for us that we never dreamed of when we first bought Raven.