" Thanks for this post. You reminded me of my days in the Navy. For a portion of my stint, I was stationed in Charleston, SC.

I used to crew for a guy who had a 47 foot twin mast motor-sailer and needed a hand with the sails for his day sailing weekend trips.

It's a fond memory, returning in the moonlight to our mooring, gliding past Fort Sumter and Charleston's Antebellum mansions!

Thanks!

~Ruff "

" I was born and raised on the North Coast. The psychological feeling of knowing the ocean is nearby, along with all of bodies of fresh water feeding into it, delivers a familiar comfort. When the fog rolls in, I can smell the ocean scent in it, even here in Angwin. And as a kid, we used to camp on the coast and have birthday parties on the sand dunes in Sonoma County.

My dad tried taking our ski boat up the Petaluma River once and the waves were much too choppy for a small boat. I remember the view ahead, where the mouth opened up into the bay. In the eyes of a little kid, it might as well have been the open ocean. If the choppy waves tossing our boat around were any indication of how bad it was going to be out there, I was content remaining withing the confines of a river where I could swim to shore if the boat capsized. Today, I have a healthy relationship with water and safety!

For those of us raised near a coastline, it's a peculiar feeling, though, traveling to places like the Midwest. There are people whose closest encounter with the ocean is a picture. It's no coincidence that the most highly populated places on Earth are along the coastlines. The further inland I travel, the more I get it! "

" There's an old story vocal-de, about a sailor who retires and starts walking inland with an oar over his shoulder until he meets some one who asks him what it is... and there he settles down.

However, I like being close to the ocean, and the mountains.

So that makes Northern California the perfect place for me. A couple of hours and you can be skiing, or walking the beach.

~Ruff "

" Ruff, every once in awhile I think about moving to places like Colorado or Wyoming. California is getting too crowded for my liking.

On the other hand, like you say, we are surrounded by so many places and things to do. Lake Tahoe, skiing, the culture of San Francisco with all it's museums and restaurants, our beaches, coastline, rivers and Redwood groves. We can kiteboard in the AM, visit a museum by afternoon, and by late evening be in Tahoe. Oh, I shouldn't forget the jewel where we live. We can enjoy this incredible Mediterranean climate because it's in our backyard. Is there any other place quite like it? "

" Not that I've found in my travels, vocal-de.

Like others, I get antsy when I venture too far inland. I like knowing that the coast and beautiful ocean is just a short drive away. I can't imagine life in Nebraska or another land-locked state. I grew up in D.C., but my dad loved the water so we had our annual summer voyage to Ft. Lauderdale each year. Before long dad bought a nice beach house in Southern Maryland where we had a ski boat and Sunfish sailboat at the ready, not to mention all the blue crabs we could eat.

My marriage brought me west to the SF Bay Area and I knew I'd found paradise and a new place to call home. Ocean in one direction, mountains in the other. What more could one hope for? "