Many talk about quitting their job, trading in a mortgage for a sailboat to take up residence atop the deep blue sea. Kenny Walker actually made the leap.
“A lot of people dream about it,” Walker says. “We are doing it.”
He and his wife, Kathy, still own Walker Companies at 121 NW 6, founded by his parents as Walker Stamp & Seal Co. in 1951. They just don’t work there anymore. Their office is the ocean.
“The boat is our home. We live there,” he says. “We’ve been talking and planning about this for 20 years.”
CHALLENGE
Four years ago, a couple of his longtime employees challenged him to put his money where his mouth is, so Walker granted them the day-to-day operating reins and gradually began backing out of the business.
The next step was to buy a boat. In June 2006, the Walkers picked up their new home: a 44-foot long PDQ Antares catamaran manufactured on Lake Ontario in Canada.
“Basically, in house vernacular, it’s two bedroom, two bath,” he says.
They christened it the Mer Soleil — that’s French for “sun and sea,” they say — and sold their house and car to simplify things.
When they told their daughter, then a recent college graduate, about their move, Walker says, “her first reaction was, ‘Why did you wait? Why didn’t you go when I could go?’”
COASTING
Leaving from Canada in July 2006, the Walkers traveled down the East Coast, ending the year in Florida. Much of 2007 was spent in the Bahamas; 2008 highlights included Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
The days’ agendas are up to them, which he says is “either the beauty or the worst part of what we do.”
Friends and relatives board on occasion for a few days’ stay, but most of the time, it’s just him and his wife. Sometimes they fish, but “we rarely catch anything,” he says. “We’re not very good at it.”
The worst part about it is dealing with inclement weather. And the best, he says, “is the freedom to go where you wanna go, within reason. If you don’t like the scenery or something’s not working, you just pick up the anchor and go on down the way.”
“It’s not something we’re going to do for the rest of our lives,” Walker says. “We set out and said probably four or five years, but we’ll see how it goes. As long as it’s still fun.”