Pete DeBoer

Pete DeBoer has led an interesting life, and still does. In 1964 he signed up for a four year hitch in the Coast Guard. Nearly twenty-three years later he retired when a second bureaucratic tour in Washington DC failed to offer the adventure he had enjoyed at sea and in the operational missions around the world.

He served on two overseas Loran stations in Spain and Germany. In Germany, he served as Commanding Officer. Pete enjoyed serving on three different cutters ranging from buoy tenders to high endurance ships deploying for months at a time in the Pacific, Atlantic, Bearing Sea and the Caribbean. As a district training officer in Seattle, he visited and deployed on several dozen more cutters for brief training events. His tour onboard the cutter ESCAPE in Charleston South Carolina from 1981 to 1984 is the inspiration for the novel Heave To. His fascination with the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Charleston, Jamaica and the south east Atlantic coastal waters provide the backdrop for this saga.

ESCAPE deployed on drug interdiction patrols thirty times while DeBoer served as Operations Officer and Executive Officer. His extensive travel in the western hemisphere includes every state in the union, every Western European country as far east as Poland and Central and South America.

Since leaving the service Pete built his own house from top to bottom then took up Real Estate for half a dozen years. He created a small business providing office solutions to local businesses and served two terms as an elected Port Commissioner in the Port of Kingston Washington where he wrote monthly editorials in the local newspaper. Pete made one run for the Washington State Legislature in 2010. The campaign did not go the way he wanted but opened his life up to hundreds of new friends. He is a licensed maritime captain and occasionally enjoys employment taking anglers fishing for salmon and halibut in Southeast Alaska. Lately he has spent summers in Charleston South Carolina operating a charter yacht showing tourists the Holy City from the water side. Heave To has been a labor of love for nearly a dozen years and can be found in several book stores in Charleston and at the shop in the Historical Charleston Foundation on Meeting Street.

DeBoer home is in Kingston Washington just north and west of Seattle. He enjoys playing guitar and singing in the local pubs.

In the spring of 2017 Pete began travelling with his dog Maggie in his motor home exploring many regions of America while working on the sequel to Heave To. He is always searching for the next adventure. Late in 2019 Pete parked the motor home and bought a condo on the Ashley River in Charleston.