Kevin’s Car*

Remember Kevin from our detour to Newport, OR? We met him on the dock and bonded over being towed in by the Coast Guard after engine trouble. He came aboard to survey our engine and exhaust configuration and helped Steve crack the code. We had a feeling he was special.

Kevin had a job delivering a powerboat from Puget Sound to Sausalito, where he lives when he’s not sailing in Central America. Before he left — headed home to wait for some heat-exchanger parts — he gave us his phone number and a bag of fresh food, including some little pears he’d bought from a kid with a roadside operation. That detail was another clue.

By the time we got to Sausalito, Kevin was back in Newport, but he hooked us up with a boat engine mechanic who made a house call to the Sausalito Yacht Club. Kevin also gave us the keys to his 1990’s era Suburban parked right next to the Yacht Club. We were starting think there was no end to Kevin’s kindness.

We drove Kevin’s car all over town looking for flip flops, as Paul’s feet had apparently grown a full size since leaving Seattle. Steve ran errand after errand to Worst Marine to get yet another part he didn’t get that last time. We drove the beautiful, winding road to Bolinas to meet cousin Keoni for a dawn patrol surf session. And we happily filled the car’s gargantuan tank with Californian gasoline, which still didn’t seem like enough of a thank you. Everywhere we went, people honked and waved, assuming we were Kevin.

When we parked the car back in its lot, a guy stopped to check us out and noticed we weren’t Kevin, but quickly realized we were the family on the aluminum boat Kevin had told him about and offered us “Anything you need. Really, anything.” We wondered if Kevin might be the mayor of Sausalito.

Several days later, we took Flyer to an open slip in a nearby marina to meet Ron, a 77-year-old man in a diving suit. While Ron was underwater, we asked his wonderful wife, Lisa, how often boats come to the marina where they live aboard for bottom cleaning and she said: “Oh never. Kevin asked us to.” Is Kevin our guardian angel?

Who is Kevin??

Our best guess is that Kevin is a regular guy with exceptionally good karma — and also, pretty emblematic of the people we’ve met while cruising around on Flyer over the years: people with enough practical skills to take a boat to remote places and the curiosity to want to, generous enough to share whatever they can, with the good humor to figure they’ll be the ones needing help before long.

Of all the reasons to shove your family into a small boat and spend a year sailing around the Pacific Ocean, meeting the Kevins of the world is top of our list.

* Kevin’s Car is the name of a song by our family’s favorite band, Everything Everything. We listened to it while we drove around in Kevin’s car and sang along with the windows down. If that isn’t nice, what is?