Jeremy Bell and Janet Crane met in the early 1980s in Florida while working at Florida Power and Light.  We started sailing on rental boats in Miami and graduated to maintaining a rental boat for the owners in return for sailing time - which we did for a couple of years.  This is a GREAT way to gain knowledge about owning and maintaining a boat without the expense. 

We found and purchased our first boat, Flying Cloud - a CT 34 Taiwanese built boat in 1984.  We had her until a couple of years ago, when we sold her to a young family who were looking for a sailboat to live on an go cruising.   We had decided by then that what we really needed was a little trawler in which we could do the Great Loop trip and continue to explore new areas.