Start with a baby picture? Why not! Sloyd grew up on the banks of the Loxahatchee River on the Atlantic coast of Florida, he learned to swim as he learned to walk. Small boats were his toys, at seven he mounted a broom stick mast and a bed sheet sail on a $5 drugstore plastic boat, sailing out of sight up the river. His mother said she had to learn to sail just to keep up with him! As a teenager, he became an accomplished unicyclist, water skier and skin-diver, besides sailing. He was also an avid reader, and enjoyed creating electronic circuits.

As a young adult, he moved to Colorado. Sloyd has had a life filled with much travel, many adventures, alternative lifestyles, and varied ways to make a living, all out of the ordinary. After graduating from college with a B.of A. in Theater, he lived on the largest hippie commune in the U.S. before an extended search by hitch hiking to find a home. He discovered Manitou Springs, Colorado, a bohemian artist and tourist town at the foot of Pike's Peak. He was one of the early members of the Commonwheel Artists Co-op, making a slim living as a fiber artist, wood carver, sculptor, face painter, and puppeteer.

Click here to read a play Sloyd wrote and Commonwheel Artists performed

He became an apartment manager to provide himself with housing, and ended up buying the nine unit complex for no money down, becoming a landlord at 24. Through wise financial management, handyman skills, and hard work, the complex became profitable in two years. He also worked part-time as a nude artist's model for colleges and art schools for a decade, when not traveling.

Being a landlord gave him the freedom to travel extensively, while on a very tight budget. After 15,000 miles of hitch hiking, he retired his thumb and began extended bicycle touring, the first from Colorado to Montana and back. He house-sat alone in a log cabin on 120 acres in the mountains of western North Carolina for three winters, doing lots of wood carving, running, and teaching himself to play the guitar.

Click here to read Sloyd's journals from three winters of solitude

Another bicycle tour circling Florida in the winter prompted him to add a trailer to the bicycle so he could be self sufficient for a longer journey. After a summer in a Shakespeare repertory group in Asheville, North Carolina, a summer filled with windsurfing, wood carving, performances and magical moments, he spent his last winter in solitude. Departing from Villa Grove, Colorado on his bicycle, he pulled the trailer over the Rocky Mountains, through Utah, Wyoming and Montana. Idaho and Washington brought him to the North Cascades, the San Juan Islands gave him salt air to breathe again, and the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California were easy to pedal after months of mountains. Six months of bicycle travel, camping in the wilderness, pulling a trailer loaded with his guitar, books, camping gear and food gave him a strong center, when he returned to Colorado he came out to himself, coming from solitude into the search for a mate.

Click here to read an exerpt of Sloyd's journals from this bicycle trip

In 1985 he crewed on the 32' Endeavor sloop "Joy Too" leaving Jacksonville. Over the next three months the sloop made landfalls at Ft. Lauderdale, Bimini, the Berry Islands, Andros Island, New Providence Island, Eleuthera, Cat Island, the Exumas, the Out Islands of the Bahama to Mayaguana, and Provinciales in the Turks and Caicos. Being the only sailor other than the skipper for most of the voyage, he learned larger sailboat handling, navigation and the lessons the Atlantic could dish out.

Click here to read Sloyd's journal of that voyage

In 1988 he was eager to sail again, and earned his scuba diver's certification to qualify as crew on a 50' Samson design ferro-cement ketch "Break-Away" out of the British Virgin Islands. In five months he learned the waters of the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, and made landfalls at St. Martin, Saba, Statia, St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, and St. Lucia, returning to St. Thomas in the U.S.V.I. Once again, he was the only crew other than the skipper.

His first two lovers died of AIDS, and after the third died of heart disease, he retreated into solitary camping from a small car in southern Mexico for three and a half months. As a leather man he worked for a year in a leather shop in Denver creating bondage restraints, floggers, and adult leather toys for other leathermen. Travel always beckoned, he became a traveling companion for the owner of a Pullman sleeper car and logged 20,000 miles by train in the U.S. The political climate in Colorado Springs was changing, the advent of Amendment 2 made life there oppressive for an out and political gay man, so with a heavy heart, he sold his properties in Colorado.

Click here to read Sloyd's essay on Leather and Spirituality

Click here to read Sloyd's essay on Bondage

In the 90's, after political burnout from battling Amendment 2 in Colorado, he returned to Florida, settled in Gulfport. Soon after buying a home in Gulfport, he met Bob DeBoer. Bob had never seen much of the USA west of the Mississippi River, so they made two long camping trips together. The first was the interior of the U.S., from Florida to Michigan, west to Yellowstone, south through Utah to the Grand Canyon, and the high country of Colorado while the aspens were gold. The second the next year was more ambitious, from Florida to Maine, across parts of Canada and North Dakota to Glacier National Park, meandering through central Idaho in pursuit of hot springs. The north Cascades, the San Juan Islands, and the Olympic Peninsula lead us to the Washington and Oregon coasts. Crater Lake and the redwoods were a short break from the Pacific, then Down the California coast to nine days in San Francisco, covering both the Folsom and Castro Street Fairs. South along the coast to San Simeon, they then traveled inland to Sequoia and Yosemite, over the Sierras through Death Valley to Las Vegas. The south rim of the Grand Canyon this time, then they explored northern New Mexico, with a last stop at Carlsbad Cavern before returning.In August 1996 he bought "More Life." During a trip to Key West in December 1997 he decided to pursue a new career of a gay charter sailboat captain. Thus, began Sail More Life.

Click here to read about the voyage to Key West

Bob's four adult children own 250 acres in rural south central Kentucky, along the Cumberland River. He loved gardening, and with his children created a spiritual community there called Eartheart Mountain. Bob and Sloyd spent summers in Kentucky, helping the community and the garden grow. On August 14, 2000, Bob DeBoer died at home in Kentucky, in the company of Sloyd and his children.

Click here to read Bob DeBoer's Memorial and Autobiography

Sloyd continued to captain the sloop "More Life" for several more years after Bob's death. After 5 years of being a sailboat charter captain, he closed down the business and sold "More Life." He enjoyed every day sailing, there just weren't enough of them to meet the expenses of keeping the boat.

Click here to view a gallery of photos of 'More Life'

For the past few years Sloyd has devoted a lot of effort to the land in Kentucky he calls Sloydia. He still spends winters in Florida, and has two lovers. He stays in top shape by lifting weights every day, plus much bicycling when in Florida. Being over 50 years old, he is proud of his body, and presents here a few galleries of photos of himself.

Please note: all photos have sloyd.com on them, he has found that photos get spread around the Internet. Once a man placed a personal ad using a photo of Sloyd from this site. None of the photos have full frontal nudity, the site host does not allow such. Sloyd has those photos in his private collection, but may be persuaded to share them, given a polite, literate, personally informative and interesting request. His email address can be found within the photo of a gemstone.

Click here to view a gallery of photos from Sloyd's 2005 calendar

Click here to see nude photos of Sloyd

Click here to see more photos of Sloyd

Sloyd's Email Address

Sloyd has a new email address, displayed within the photo of one of his gemstones. Because of spam, the email address must be retyped into an address line. The email address is the word "email", followed by the "at" symbol above the number 2 on your keyboard, then followed by "sloyd.com", all lower case with no spaces. Only humans, not spam software should send me email, please!  

Sorry for the inconvenience, but his previous email address filled with several hundred spam messages each day.

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