One of the things I love about Colin is that he’s a dreamer.  I think he always has been.  He was the kid staring out a classroom window lost in thought or curled up in a library corner enveloped in the pages of a faraway world. Now that he’s a grown-up, he gets to follow those dreams and make them real.  And today he achieved another one of those dreams.

For the last two years Colin has been designing, testing and building a custom rowboat for the Race to Alaska (R2AK), a 750-mile slog from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan, Alaska.  Today he completed the first leg from Port Townsend to Victoria and qualified for the full race to Alaska. He did extraordinarily well, placing second in the under 20-foot boat category and voyaging the 60 mile crossing in less than 7 hours. On Sunday he’ll leave for Alaska.

This hasn’t been an easy road for him.  Last year, days before the race was about the begin, the boat fell off the trailer and the resulting damage scuttled dreams of competing. Training runs have been long and hard.  There have been equipment failures and breakages.  But every setback has also been an opportunity for improvement, and it’s this mind set that has allowed him to succeed.

I am so proud of my husband, not only what he achieves but for being a dreamer.