About Us 

Ed and Marion
Herndon

At Portage Cove on the 
Great Loop Cruise 

July 2000
 
Ed is a retired computer systems engineer. 
He spent the greater part of his career as a contractor at the NASA Johnson Space Center. His first and last projects were in the Mission Control Center.		 Marion is a retired school teacher with professional training in Special Education. 
Her career was split evenly between La Port and Clearbrook High Schools.

We both have three children from former marriages.  We met playing tennis and found we have a common love for sailing.

In 1991 we joined Texas Mariners Cruising Association. With TMCA we learned there was a whole world beyond Red Fish Island. We cruised wherever the club was going.

The more we cruised the bigger our boats got. We changed boats every three years. First there was Pegasus, a 1970 Ericsson 30, then Cast Off a 1984 Hunter 34.5, then Great Ketch, a 1982 Morgan OI 41.

When we got Great Ketch  in 1996 things really started to happen.  With a big comfortable boat we cruised more often.  I decided that I would take early retirement the following year. We set upon fixing the boat up for long range cruising when retirement came.  I ran for TMCA Cruise Captain, and entered our boat as the TMCA entry in the Christmas Boat Parade. We won Most Beautiful boat that year.  I was hooked on boat parades forever. There is a special section on TMCA's success in the Christmas Boat Parade.

In 1997 I served as Cruise Captain. That was the year Lee Gunter and Mindi Miller set out on New World, a 32 foot cutter rigged sloop, to spend three years circumnavigating the world. Inspired by Lee's accounts in the Houston Chronicle web page, I started the TMCA web page.  I hoped to create a page which captured the spirit of the club. We also did the Boat Parade with TMCA and took top honors with "Angels We have Heard on High".

In 1998 I served as TMCA Commodore.  It was a year of great fun including a week of cruising with our friends Sam and Charlotte Pakenham-Walsh in the Greek Islands and a trip to Norway to visit son Philip, Ingrid and grand daughters Elsa and Maja. We also found time to do the Geezer Cruise to Corpus Christi with the club. And finally we transformed Dorothy and Ed Hearon's boat Shorty VI into a Side Wheel Riverboat and took Most Original in the 1998 Parade.

In the spring of 1999 we switched from sail to power and bought Remedy, a 1988 Seamaster 48. This was done in preparation for the Great Loop Cruise which started on November 4, 1999 and ended November 5, 2000, one year and one day later.  It was our grand millenium cruise. 

Spring of 2001 we resumed our adventures with a trip to Florida Keys, Dry Tortugas, and the Bahamas.   In September we did the French Barge Canal Cruise with the Club. We were in France at the time of the 9/11 attack and it prolonged our stay due to flight cancellations.  This gave us additional time in Paris to see all the main attractions.   The biannual Family Reunion was held at Thanksgiving time in Indian Rocks Beach. We moved back into our townhouse just before Christmas 2001 and had already placed M/Y Remedy up for sale in Florida.

January 2002 we moved the boat back to Texas and used it cruising with the TMCA until the Fall. We missed sailing and finally traded her in on a 1999 Hunter Passage 450 sloop. We retained the name Remedy for our New Sailboat.  Since 2002 Our Sailing has been mostly on the Gulf Coast. Harvest Moon race twice.  Our last Christmas boat parade was in 2004, The Nutcracker returned to win Most Outstanding Boat.

 The big event for 2006 was Our Trip to Rome.   Marion was elected Cruise Captain for 2007.