Unsinkable

Fate brought them together. Fate almost ended their lives; but would the circle of fate deliver them to the culmination of their life long dream. Everyone thought that Dee and Marshall Saunders would never return to their dream of retiring early to cruise the world in their own sailboat. After all fate abruptly intervened and shattered their dream twice first by the sudden tragic death of their daughter, and later when they experienced every sailor s ultimate nightmare a collision at sea with a freighter. In 90 seconds their boat and all of their worldly possessions were thousands of feet beneath the ocean s surface. It took Dee s childhood driving force you can do it, if you try coupled with Marshall s incredible unfailing talents to meet the challenges that suddenly confronted them. As the reader follows the couple relentlessly plow through life s unexpected tragedies and continually climb back up with courage and determination, he will learn that all dreams are achievable and can even be enhanced by life s unexpected tragedies and sometimes end in a way that you could never imagine.

Dee Saunders was born and raised in eastern Pennsylvania and attended East Stroudsburg State College. She moved to San Jose, California in the early 1960s and married. She later became a real estate agent and moved to Northern California. Soon after the move, the marriage dissolved.

Marshall Saunders lived on a sailboat with his wife and daughter in Honolulu, where he owned several dental laboratories. In the late 1970s, his marriage dissolved and he moved to Northern California where he changed professions and became a real estate broker. It was in northern California where Dee and Marshall ultimately met, married, and joined families.

Dee and Marshall opened a Real Estate brokerage in the small mountain community of Shingletown and lived there until retiring in their mid-forties to the cruising lifestyle. Marshall had been sailing all his life, but Dee was new to the adventures. Early in the relationship they did a lot of racing on various sailboats including the Hobie 18, Stelleto 27 and Olson 25. After retiring, they spent nine years living aboard their Tayana 52 and later after their accident, their Tatoosh 51 cruising the waters of British Columbia, Alaska, Mexico, Central and South America, the western Caribbean, the Bahamas and the South Pacific putting many miles of open-ocean cruising under their belt.

They currently reside on Whidbey Island and own a Newberry Port 52 sundeck trawler, on which they spend their summers cruising to Northern British Columbia and Alaska.