Jimmy Bayles was born on January 11th, 1953 in Seattle, WA. He grew up on a farm in Auburn, WA, south of Seattle, with the usual chores including a cow to milk. Jimmy hated that cow. Jimmy was a talented baseball player, playing from little league and throughout his life. His resulting injuries being his go-to excuse for not straining himself with tasks he would rather avoid.

Between the farm life and his father being a Boeing machinist, Jimmy grew up with a knack for fixing and making. It was not long before he joined the local airplane company himself in 1975 and stayed with the company for 33 years before retiring in 2008.

Jimmy was a gifted model maker for Boeing, working on top secret projects, commercial airliners, and even a missle that is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. As a "tunnel rat", aka a wind tunnel model technician, he worked with his teammates to test their models at some of the most impressive wind tunnels in the world. After retiring from Boeing, Jimmy joined Patterson Labs in Seattle where he worked on significant projects for other major aerospace companies.

Diving became a passion and an auxiliary career for Jimmy starting with his graduation from the Highline College Marine Science and Technology (MaST) Center in 1980. Jimmy traveled the world with Society Expeditions as an onboard dive master in 1986, worked commercial dive jobs, and worked as an instructor and dive master for dive shops from the Caribbean to Seattle.

Jimmy loved playing music from a young age and even had a garage band. They thought they were going to be the next Beatles but it never occurred to them that they weren't any good. As Jimmy got older and started his career, the music fell to the wayside. Then his good friend Greg Bandy cajoled him into picking up his guitar in 1999 and to start making music again. Jimmy practiced and recorded in a converted storage unit turned office/studio just up from his boat where he lived.

Jimmy played open mics and gigs around Seattle, working to become the famous rock star nobody had ever heard of. Jimmy was keenly focused on writing and arranging the songs for his albums. Songs of the sea. Songs of the beyond. Songs to carry the listener away from their day to day lives and into the possibility of leaving it all behind.

Jimmy is a storyteller and not just storytelling through music. He always has a story ready and can intertwine the storytelling into his teaching. Whether on a boat or in the water, he can deliver a yarn that will get a chuckle and a smile and make the task at hand that much easier to bear. For those who know Jimmy, some of their most cherished memories are those nights on the boat where he is holding court, with either a guitar or drink in hand, the storyteller leading the way into a magical night.

Watermen have worked the river Thames for a thousand years and the men and women who work the river today call themselves watermen and take great pride in the title. A waterman is someone who works or lives on the water, someone who is deeply connected to the natural environment and feels a responsibility to protect and give back to it. Jimmy is a waterman in every sense of the word.

Jimmy started tinkering around with boats at a young age. At 19, in his 1966 Corvette, towing a 16ft ski boat, Jimmy and his friends would drive through Auburn looking for girls. For a time, Jimmy even raced a Mark 25 B Class Stock home built hydro on Lake Tapps. The power boating came to an end as nobody wanted to chip in for fuel. Moving to sailboats, Jimmy raced his Ben Seaborn designed Sierra sailboat (the predecessor to the T-Bird) and won all kinds of "hardware" in races up and down the Puget Sound.

Jimmy started living aboard in 1983 on his 1948 42ft Owens. Moored across from the Ballard Locks, he could sit on his boat and enjoy "the greatest show on earth" as boats of all sizes jockeyed in and out of the locks. In 1990 Jimmy sold the Owens, moved onto his beloved 1979 CT 38 sailboat, Risuli, and never looked back. Jimmy attained his USCG 100 ton Master Captain's license in 1990 and then the prestigious RYA Yacht Master certificate in 1992.

Jimmy taught for years at the Windworks sailing club at Shilshole Marina in Seattle. His humor, knowledge, and storytelling enchanted and enlightened those who took his classes. Jimmy mentored many of his best students into a life and career on the water. Thus paying it forward, the waterman bringing more watermen into the fold.

Today, Jimmy still enjoys sitting in the cockpit of Risuli and watching the goings on at the locks. Friends, many former students, stopping by for advice, a drink, and a story. Captain Jimmy, always the storyteller, forever the waterman.