Captain John moved onto his first boat in Seattle in 1970 and has been involved with the marine and yacht industry ever since. In the 70's he owned and operated a yacht outfitting company in Seattle. In addition to the outfitting and repair of numerous yachts, and the rebuilding of two classic motor yachts, he built the 57 foot schooner Alia with which he conducted many charter trips within the Pacific Northwest from Puget Sound to Alaska. In 1979-1980 Captain John sailed Alia south through Mexico and Central America, transited the Panama Canal and then to St Petersburg Florida where the Alia was later sold.
In the early 1980's when the economy was not favorable to the yacht business he worked for a time as captain of crew and supply boats off the gulf coast of Texas, a Pearl Harbor dinner cruise boat in Hawaii, and did numerous deliveries from and to various places on the planet. In 1984 he returned to the yacht industry and was employed as the owners representative in the construction of a 130 foot mega yacht in Hong Kong which he later sailed to Australia. This yacht was later used in the movies Overboard with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn and Indecent Proposal with Robert Redford and Demi Moore. In 1986 he was employed to design the systems and oversee the construction of the 80 foot motor yacht Prelude in San Diego and he continued as captain until 1992. The Prelude was outfitted with state of the art systems including complete computer monitoring of all ships systems.
In 1992 the captain tried to set the anchor in the mountains of Washington state and embarked on a new career in the world of computers. He was employed for a time at Microsoft and Digital Equipment as a programmer and later started his own company providing IT services to small and medium size companies in the Seattle area specializing in computer network systems. However, his love for the sea never failed and he would often return to do a delivery or take a cruise with a friend.
In 2003 Captain John and his near lifelong friend Jeff Steinborn bought the Cal 46 sailing vessel Windy Dancer. The captain thought he would semi retire and do some chartering and did sail Windy Dancer from Seattle to the Rio Dulce in Guatemala teaching offshore sailing to those who came along for the ride. However, one day he was contacted with an offer to return to the oil patch in Mexico to captain a supply boat and that set him off on another career change for a short time.
As sometimes happens, that anchor didn’t hold in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state and the captain fell in love with the Rio Dulce River and Guatemala where he bought a home. That's why you find him now at Captain John's Rio Dulce Marina.
Captain John holds a USCG license as Master of Steam and Motor Vessels of not more than 3000 ITC tons upon any oceans and Auxiliary Sailing Vessels of not more than 100 tons upon any oceans.
Rule of life:
If it aint fun, don't do it