‘You live your passions’: Omaha man ventures 7,000 miles on jet ski

By Julie Cornell

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    OMAHA, Nebraska (KETV) — Some people ease gently into their 50th birthday with the caution of a middle-aged adult dipping a toe in the waters of retirement. Mike Straub is not one of those people.

“You live your passions,” said Straub, who has the license plate “Y WAIT” on his Corvette.

The Omaha man is on an adventure he’s planned for years. He’s riding 7,000 miles on a gas-powered Sea-Doo jet ski, navigating a route known as The Great Loop. It’s a roundtrip water ride from his home in Omaha, through rivers and inland waterways, the Gulf of Mexico and finally the Atlantic coastline and back up through the Great Lakes, then home. He dropped the watercraft in the Missouri River in Bellevue in June to start his journey.

Straub, a software development advisor with Team Software in Omaha, said his sense of adventure was inspired by a desire to change and live life.

He started taking adventurous road trips years ago, including a cross-country trip in a Corvette with his teenage son who lives with autism.

A few years prior, he had an awakening.

“I had sold my sports car, we had kids, was in a rut and had family members die from cancer and I was like, ‘What are you waiting for?’”

Straub took more than a year to plan his Great Loop trip, one often experienced in luxury yachts over the course of a year. Instead, he’s staying in hotels and is often invited to take a room with locals and experience hospitality along the route for four months.

Straub makes frequent stops to rest and gas up. He makes reservations at docks along the route and plans his overnights. “I’ve stayed with five different people so far,” said Straub, who’s followed by thousands along the route on social media. He said the kindness of people is overwhelming. You can follow Straub on his Facebook page, Mike’s Facebook Page where he posts links to YouTube videos.

Most days, he’s on the water for 6 to 10 hours, battling everything from Gulf Coast waves, to smooth as glass river ways. He’s only seen a few sharks, but it’s the dolphins that intrigue him the most.

“When you’re out in the middle of the water, the dolphins become your friends. If I’m going kind of slow, they’ll swim with me,” said Straub.

As you might imagine, it’s a journey filled with visits to local restaurants and fresh seafood.

“The peel and eat shrimp here is fantastic,” he said about the Florida/Georgia coast.

Sometimes, his jet ski is just a dot in the ocean.

“The Naples to Key West route, I was off-shore quite a way,” said Straub. He said not being able to see land didn’t get to his head. He said that was his longest day on the water, 225 miles.

He’s guided by a host of tech gadgets including GPS, maps, an Android tablet and a depth finder. He’s taking several long vacation breaks, including a week off in Florida where his wife and two sons joined him to celebrate his 50th birthday and 25th wedding anniversary.

He’s in Fernandina Beach, Florida now, on his way to the outer banks of North Carolina where his brothers will join him on vacation. He uses his vacation time to get the jet ski serviced and ready for the waters ahead. Straub plans to be back home in Omaha sometime in September with stories to tell.

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