Dance Ice Skating.  We both learned to ice skate as adults and started ice dancing under USFSA doctrine with Estelle Tratiak at the Veterans Memorial rink in West Hartford, Conn.  We retired early and moved to Englewood, FL in 1996 to focus our skating at the Venice Ice Pavilion in Venice, Fla.  with Erika Amundsen under ISI rules.  Since that rink closed in 1998 we have trained at the Ice Sports Forum, Brandon, FL, the Skatium in Ft. Myers, and then, the Ellenton Ice & Sports Complex in Ellenton, FL. where we were coach by French Olympian, Frederic Palluel and Kelly Paige.    

Synchronized Team Skating.  Bev was an officer on the Board of Directors of Tropical Spice on Ice (TSI), a ladies synchronized ice skating team that now skates out of the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex  with  coach, Kelly Paige.  Jack provided props when needed and skated in the large production numbers when support skaters are needed.  The team skates in shows and competitions locally and makes one or two out-of-state trips per season.  Click here for the team web site.

Sailing      One of the reasons we came to Englewood was that it had "affordable" waterfront property and we could buy a comfortable house on a deep water channel  to keep our Catalina 22 sailboat, Placebo, in the water at home.   Darin gave us his Hobie 16 that had been badly damaged in a storm in Colorado and towed it here at Christmas.  It had been flipped over by high wind when it was tied to a dock at the Aspen Yacht Club on Ruedi Reservoir.  Besides hull and hardware damage, the mast and both rudders had been broken.  Luckily, the Yacht Club gave him an old mast and a set of rudders that someone had left there.  Jack tackled the project beautifully and it withstood the "on the water test."  We sail in Lemon Bay off Lemon Bay Park and go through Stump Pass, the  Venice Jetties, or Boca Grande Pass when we want to sail in the Gulf of Mexico.  With the hull speed of the Catalina at 5.1 mph it took us 1½ hrs. to get to Stump Pass and out into the Gulf.  In an effort to reduce this transit time to the Gulf, to get a better shallow water draft, and to get a more stable boat in heavy winds we sold the Catalina, Hobie, and motor boat and bought a Sea Wind 24 catamaran, Adrenalin.  This is touted to be a lightning fast family weekend cruiser.  It had a 16 ft. beam and bunks for four.  It had a sound hull and new sails and standing rigging but was otherwise a fixer upper.  We then added lighting, instruments, and an engine--a 4 stroke Honda OB.  We had it up to 16.5 mph on wind only.  We could cruise with just the engine at 7 mph, much better if there if some wind to help. This boat became too much to single hand and was replaced in the Spring of 2017 with a wonderful classic 16 ft. Com-Pac pocket cruiser sailboat.  Jack built a self furler for the spanking new birthday custom genoa and "Encore" looks wonderful.  This is the perfect boat with which to age.