I have wanted for some time share the story of how I found Ecuador. I have been a bit of an adventurer all of my life. I had a very good life in the USA, and created a number of successful small companies in my spare time during the off season of my 30 year career as a professional race car driver and race car builder. In my final 3 years, I set 158 international track records with my Jet powered Funny Cars, and was able to travel the world and get paid for it! I tell people that I had fun for a living and I got paid for it too! I also started a team to build the World Land Speed Record Challenger, the American Eagle One. This is a 50,000 H.P. jet powered vehicle that we built to go after the Unlimited World Land Speed Record. I appeared on the Regis and Kathi Lee Show, Jay Leno and many others.

After 30 years, I was looking for a new adventure. I was living on a power boat that I had purchased from a friend that was going to lose it to the bank, and I met a couple that had just returned on a 32 foot sail boat from an 18 month trip around the Pacific. After speaking with them, I said, "I want to do that!" One year later I had sold my Race Car, business, shop, rented my house, bought a 45 foot sail boat, and left to sail the Pacific.

I had never sailed before I bought this boat. The first week we made our way from Tacoma to San Francisco and in route ran into the tail end of Hurricane Guiermo with 50 knot winds and 25 foot seas for 3 days while offshore. We learned much on this trip and continued cruising the Pacific for 4 years with no more major weather problems. We spent a year and a half on the West coast of the USA and Mexico, a year in Central America, a year and a half in South America and the South Pacific.

This is how I found this Paradise called Ecuador. I found the people to be the friendliest, the Country enchanting and beautiful, and the costs very inexpensive. The town that we landed in was Bahia De Caraquez on the coast, and the locals made me feel like family. I searched the coast for three months hunting for a beachfront property for sale with no success. Before I left to make the 35 day crossing to the South Pacific, I purchased a farm inside of an Ecuadorian National Park. It overlooks a famous Crater Lake called Laguna De Cuicocha with two islands. The Indians tell me that in ancient times the Indians went to this property to be close to the Gods. You can see 7 volcanoes, the Otavalo valley, Lake San Pablo, and you can actually see the lights of Quito at night over 50 miles away! 

Then Mercy and I went to work on something much more important, and now at the age of 56 I have an almost 3 year old boy and another on the way! (See how I got married story) I have been here now for 8 years. We have been investing in North Coastal real estate for 7 of those 8 years, and have close to 30 properties on the beach. Some with a quarter acre, and some with as much as one mile of beachfront. Over the years I have walked close to 50 miles of beachfront myself, talking with fisherman and farmers, and in the process have found many great deals and as a bonus have also found many pre-Colombian artifacts just lying on the beach! I believe in Ecuador, and the future holds many good things here for the people that have a little adventure in their souls.