When I entered the field of oceanography in the 1960s everything we knew about ocean circulation came from knowing the distribution of heat and salt in the ocean, not from direct measurement. The oceanographic community was well aware of this and working hard to address this shortcoming. I was close to finishing my PhD work when Henry Stommel asked if I might be interested in working with Doug Webb to develop the SOFAR float concept to study oceanic motion. This became the start to my life in physical oceanography. The first few years focused on getting the float operation up and running. Although I never saw myself as a teacher, a few years later I moved to Yale University where I also started a program to look at the vertical structure of currents - what later evolved into the Pegasus program. In 1975 I moved to the Graduate School of Oceanography at University of Rhode Island. It has been my professional home ever since. We have learned so much over the years I thought it might be fun to try to write about the things we have built and what we have learned with them.