TREASURE ISLAND — It all started in 2012 when “Captain Dan” Peretz took Art Nicholson, a close friend who was battling brain cancer, on a sailing trip on Boca Ciega Bay.
“We had been friends for 40 years and he was married on one of our boats. I just wanted to give him and his caretakers a break. I could see him light up as we cruised the bay,” Peretz says.
That initial trip was so successful in lifting Nicholson’s spirits it became a regular event.
“Those Sunday morning sails provided Art with so much happiness and gave everyone cherished memories of his last days. Spending time together on the coastal waters watching dolphins frolic and sea birds fly was precious and therapeutic,” Peretz recalls.
In 2017, that experience led Peretz to create Soothe Our Souls, a nonprofit organization dedicated to easing the burdens of people dealing with health issues as they enjoy the sparkling waters slipping by Captain Dan’s boat.
Captain Dan Peretz and crew take off from the dock in St Pete Beach.
“The free sailing trips have become a kind of a legacy for Art. The first Sunday of each month, we take people suffering from health challenges, their families, and caregivers on a completely free cruise,” he explains.
According to the group’s website, sootheoursouls.org, the sailing trips are designed for “seriously health challenged people and their support group” to help them “navigate their journey back to wellness” amid “serene settings that foster well-being, synergy with others in the same boat, and a respite in nature away from it all.”
Maureen Boland, 53, a regular patron of the Sunday sailing trips, agrees.
“I think it is the silence, the feelings of peace when we are on the water,” she says.
She particularly enjoys those crystal clear, blue sky sunny days when she can watch dolphins play alongside the sailboat, manatees float and feed under the water, and birds that dive into the water to catch fish. Her favorite moment was the day when a sea turtle swam by the boat.
“You see them on the beach, but you never expect to see a turtle swimming in the water,” Boland says.
Stricken with viral encephalitis when in college, she has continuing difficulty speaking and walking. But sitting in Captain Dan’s sailboat helps her to forget her condition.
“I love Captain Dan. He is so calm and a wonderful teacher,” she says. “I try to go out on his boat every month. It gives people who are sick and their caregivers a sense of normality,” says Boland.
“So often in life you are defined by what you can and cannot do, by your disability. But on a boat, it’s not odd if you can’t walk around,” she adds.
The Soothe Our Souls sailing trips, held the first Sunday of every month, became so essential to the transplanted Chicagoan and her husband, Roy, that he began volunteering as a crew member and sometimes is a more frequent sailor than Maureen.
Those taking part in a Soothe Our Souls sailing trip participate in yoga. The SOS trips often feature health care volunteers as well as yoga and meditation professionals who ride along to ensure health safety and to offer advice on nutrition and healing activities.
He is often joined by health care volunteers as well as yoga and meditation professionals who ride along to ensure health safety and to offer advice on nutrition and healing activities.
“We want to provide healing both on and off the boat by giving our guests the knowledge and healing tools they can use at home,” says Peretz, who is also president of the Dolphin Landings Charter Boat Center.
The monthly sailing trips became so popular — serving thousands of people on more than 100 cruises — the organization soon began to look for a permanent home.
That search, interrupted for nearly two years by what Peretz calls “our little friend, Covid,” culminated in March when Peretz and more than 70 of his friends and supporters gathered to celebrate the grand opening of a 1930s-era firehouse on Sunset Beach as the organization’s official home.
A newly constructed dock, patio, and renovated building that once housed the Boca Ciega Sail and Power Squadron and flanked by mangroves serves not only the organization’s expanded sailing program but is available for private event rentals to fund Soothe Our Souls.
The facility, just one block south of John’s Pass, offers a full-size kitchen, bathroom, bar space, dance floor, an outdoor patio, a private dock, and beach access. Both on-street and off-street lot parking is available.
“We are proceeding cautiously, but we have already hosted a baby shower and a Sweet 16 party,” Peretz says, adding that it is available for birthdays, anniversaries, family gatherings, weddings, corporate retreats, workshops, and, of course, for fundraisers for SOS. More information is available on the venue’s website, https://www.tiwaterfrontvenue.org.