FlyDiver History

The website name FlyDiver has it origins in a previous life when we were teaching people scuba diving. In order to get to the really good dive spots, a boat was needed. During dives we always flew a "diver down" flag to warn other boaters that divers were in the water. When the second boat was purchased a contest was started among diving students to name the boat. A free dive to a favorite offshore spot was offered to the diver who came up with the best name. When the name "Diver Down" was submitted it was immediately obvious that not only could we display the diver down flag, but the name on the boat would also let every other boat know what we were doing.

The first Diver Down, a 24 foot Bayliner, was sold when the price of gas went through the roof in the '70s and the engine sucked saltwater into all eight cylinders on a night lobster diving trip to the Channel Islands. A third boat was found that solved the fuel cost problem and the sailing vessel Diver Down was delivered in 1983. Shortly thereafter the house was sold and the sail boat became home for the next 11 years. During those 11 years, Art and Vicki met, married and sailed Diver Down from as far north as Desolation Sound in Canada to Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja California and most of the Sea of Cortez.

 

In 1991 we sold Vicki's business in Seattle, quit our careers and went sailing full time. Retirement at 45 was how we referred to it. In 1993 we met Jim and Nancy Murphy who were sailing their boat Nordlys (pronounced nor loose) around the world and crewed with them from California to their home in Southport, Queensland, Australia on the final leg of their circumnavigation. That was enough for us and on our return to Mexico we put our Diver Down back in the water, sailed it back to California, gave it to the broker we bought it from and the Diver Down was sold.

While living in Seattle during the '80s, Art managed to get his private pilot license and Vicki soloed in a Cessna 152. While in Australia we saw a sign along the highway that read "microflights". Vicki took a flight in an Airborne Edge, the first weight shift trike either of us had seen. When she came back down she announced that, "You can sell the boat but you have to buy me one of these!" Our first trike was a Venus kit that Vicki broke twice learning to fly so when we saw our first Apex trike with its outrageously strong welded steel frame we just couldn't resist. One of the options from Apex was the Verner engine, a chance to move up to 4 stroke reliability at an affordable price. Art eventually went to the Verner factory in Vikyrovice, Czech Republic for a week of training and became an authorized Verner dealer.

So the FlyDivers are sailors, divers and pilots. We never taught sailing, but we did teach people to fly and dive so FlyDiver became the name of our new business and has been a Washington State registered trade mark ever since.     Back to Home Page