Steve Olsson was introduced to the cruising life by his parents who, when their four children were young, moved the family aboard a 34-foot steel, modified work boat and spent a month cruising from their home in San Diego, California to San Francisco and back.
“I remember that trip as just being amazing and fantastic and it was summer and we went up the Sacramento River,” Steve said. “I vividly remember Morro Bay and going under the Golden Gate Bridge. I remember swimming ashore and picking blackberries and coming back and my mom would bake pie and all this stuff and it’s made me want to cruise my entire life.”
Steve’s father was an engineer and, like father like son, he became an engineer as well, spending 20 years working at Microsoft and then starting his own company. But the memories of that first long cruise never left him and the dream of moving aboard a boat to live the dream hadn’t died.
When he finally made the decision to do it, he bought a used American Tug 41 that suited his needs perfectly. The designs of American Tugs are based upon Alaskan fishing boats, so they are seaworthy, efficient, voluminous and robustly built. Steve would be cruising with his sister Barbara as crew, so the 41’s two-cabin, two-head layout was perfect. He renamed the boat Coda, as in the final chapter of a long tale.
Their shakedown cruise was from Seattle to Alaska and back. It was a huge success, so they spread their wings and headed south to Mexico, Panama, the Caribbean and, finally, to Key West in Florida.
Their plan was to take Coda on a tour of America’s Great Loop, which for West Coast natives was all new and historic. They left from Marathon and wended their way around the Loop with many detours and side trips. In the end, the usual 6,000-mile Loop adventure added up to more than 7,000 miles under Coda’s keel.
Steve shipped the boat back to Seattle and now lives aboard and cruises the Pacific Northwest. Dreams were delayed but then fulfilled in spades. Well done, Steve Olsson.
