Cruising Life: The Best Stories from Caribbean Compass

I  first read Ruth’s article about going overboard when it was first published in the Caribbean Compass back in 1999.

It was an amazing story and I wondered if I could possibly be as resourceful as Ruth if something like that happened to me. Before I went cruising, I thought if  anything bad happened out on the sea, well, there is no way I could possibly cope.

Once cruising though I began to learn however, that occasionally the inthinkable does occur (as it does on land as well), and I started meeting people who had coped with all sorts of emergencies  and survived.

This knowledge of course doesn’t make you complacent, in my case it made me less panicked and more able to think: what is the best way to avoid a major problem, and how should we respond in an emergency.

We all eagerly await the monthly arrival of the Caribbean Compass in the anchorages down island, and it is a special achievement to have an article published in the Caribbean Compass. Probably nothing gives a truer picture of what Caribbean cruising is like in all its variety than  the articles that Sally Erdle, editor and former circumnavigator publishes in the Compass.

Thank you Sally Erdle and Rona Beame for putting together a book of all the best stories from the Compass! I am sure I have missed some of these stories the first time around, and others like Ruth’s, I was glad to have the chance to reread again and be amazed.

— Kathy Parsons, Women and Cruising

We were sailing our Morgan 41,  Sea Dream I,  from Grenada to Antigua. The Christmas Winds had arrived early and were in force. We’d had a truly awful  night sailing from Carriacou to St. Lucia — black as the inside of an elephant  with winds that never dropped below 30 knots, plus hourly squalls of 40 to 45  knots.

In spite of all that, my husband, Vern, and I  weren’t expecting what hit us just north of Martinique: a squall with 55-knot  winds and gusts to 60. It lasted only ten minutes, but felt like ten hours as we clung grimly to the wheel.

The main blew out and then, once the winds calmed  down to only 40 knots, Vern noticed a line trailing along the lee side of the  boat. I was upset to realize that it was all that was left of our Fortress  anchor. We had lost 100 feet of chain and 200 feet of rode. A lot of water must  have come over the bow during the squall, with enough force to lift the pawl  off the windlass gypsy and let the anchor run.

With the main blown, we needed the engine and  didn’t want any lines tangling in the prop. Vern said, “Be very, very careful!”  as I went out on deck and up forward to haul the line in.

I was sitting on the  foredeck with the windlass between my knees and one hand on the windward  lifeline — and them suddenly I wasn’t!  Sea Dream  and I had parted company. It’s a distressing  sensation being run over by your home, but somehow I managed to kick out from  under the hull before I got aft to the propeller.

Vern brought the boat around immediately and I  was expecting to be run down again, but managed to grab the trailing anchor  rode, which immediately pulled me underneath the boat again. Even with the  engine out of gear and a blown-out main, 40 knots of wind and six- to  eight-foot seas push a boat along at a fair clip and I couldn’t hang on without  being dragged under. The next time Vern came for me he threw the jibsheet over  the side. That was better, as I could let myself trail aft of the boat and not  be sucked under the hull.

The next thing I remember was trying to climb aboard using the rudder extension for the wind-vane oar. I still had the  figure-eight stop knot of the jibsheet tight in my right fist. Vern was  standing at the stern knotting a line to hand to me. I got as far as standing  on the rudder with both hands on the rubrail, moved one hand to grip anything  that wasn’t slippery with salt and away I went again. Seconds later Vern had  the line ready to throw — and couldn’t see me.

By this time it was 0900 hours, which meant we  were 12 or 15 miles north of St. Pierre, which we’d left at 0600. Vern put out  a “Mayday” on VHF channel 16, which was heard by at least two sailboats and the  girls at the reception desk of the Anchorage Hotel in Dominica. But two other  sailboats that were close to us heard nothing. (When they saw our sailboat  going in circles didn’t they wonder if there was a problem? At least with the  seamanship?) The two boats sailed serenely past, without changing course for a  closer look.

It occurred to me that I’d be more visible  waving a flag, and I tried waving my T-shirt. It’s a knee-length red beach  cover-up and, dry, would make an excellent signaling device. Wet, not so great.  Try some time waving a soaking wet T-shirt overhead while swimming in six- to eight-foot seas! It’s heavy, for a start.

I stretched it out between my hands and threw it  into the air as I reached the top of a wave, but I didn’t have much hope. A successful sighting would have required me being on top of a wave, Sea  Dream being on the top of a wave and  Vern looking in exactly the right direction, all at the same time. It didn’t  work. I decided to put the shirt back on for modesty’s sake.

Vern circled for an hour, searching for me. It didn’t take me long to find out that with the wind pushing it, Sea Dream was drifting off faster than I could follow, so I stopped trying. We’d joked once that if I fell overboard he should just carry on to the next island and I’d swim in, so I headed for Dominica. I’d lost my glasses in the fall overboard but could see Dominica. Martinique was lost in squalls and rain. I turned my back to the wind and swam.

Vern, meanwhile, was having a perfectly awful day. For one thing, it was the first time he’d single-handed in the nearly 12  years since we retired aboard. At least the winds hadn’t piped up to 55 knots again, but with the blown sail down to the reef point and having to stand on the cockpit coaming to reach the reefing lines Vern didn’t have much to hang onto. He was nearly overboard himself more than once. (Which would have been a real disaster as he has negative buoyancy, as do about three percent of all people. Unlike me, he carries no built-in flotation.) At last he controlled the sail and headed north (in Dominica they speak English) to organize a search. But all the way, he was trying to work out how to break the news to my family that I had drowned.

It took Sea Dream until nearly 1700 to get close to Roseau, when three local men in a boat came out almost a mile to welcome Vern to the island and offer help. He certainly needed it! In moments Brian, James and Darryl were aboard. Brian was on the radio to the Coast Guard to report my loss, since Vern doesn’t hear well and couldn’t understand the questions they asked. Darryl was right inside the chain locker reeving the second anchor chain through the primary hawse so the boat could be anchored, and James was on the stern preparing lines to carry ashore to a palm tree.

My day was much easier. I knew I was fine, and  could tell Vern was still aboard and coping because the boat was under control.

The funniest things go through your head when you’re swimming alone between islands. Mostly I was furious for making whatever elementary mistake let me fall overboard in the first place. All kinds of thoughts went through my head: “I guess I’ll never get those Christmas cards written after all” and “Don’t start throwing away my business-card collection,  Vern, because I’ll be back!” and “I suppose he’ll be spending our life savings on a helicopter search…”

A jellyfish tentacle wrapped around my arm and I picked it off and said, “Not now, I haven’t the time!” right out loud. A dolphin swam by 30 or 40 feet away and that was a thrill, finally to swim with a dolphin, even if it was only for a second or two. A small container ship came past about a quarter of mile away, heading west, then changed course to the north, going around me exactly as if I were a pivot.

Of all possible ways to die, drowning would be my least favorite, so I didn’t. Besides, Vern had his first wife for 32 years and I could scarcely demand equal time if I weren’t around. It was necessary to stay afloat.

I thought of all the things that I’d be leaving unfinished, and shrugged. There were no regrets except for the stack of unanswered letters; some we’d even taken to Canada with us and brought back still unanswered. I was glad I hadn’t skimped on telling family and friends I love them. I was glad I hadn’t been tethered to the boat, as I’d have been battered on the way over the side or dragged under the hull until I drowned. I’d taken on quite enough water just trying to hang on by the broken anchor rode.

Just at noon, I saw a sailboat heading my way and thought, “Can’t be Vern; he doesn’t have a jib out.” Soon the boat was so close that if a wave hadn’t smacked the bow aside I’d have been run over again!

I yelled “Hey, can you see me?” but they already had. Anthony said, “There’s someone in the water!” and Justin had looked around to see who was missing. From there, the rescue was textbook perfect. Anthony never took his eyes off me as Justin managed the jib and brought Enchantress around to circle me. Her dinghy was out on a very long painter and they maneuvered it around so I could grab hold. I told them I was very tired, which was not strictly true, and would need a ladder to get aboard, which was true. I’ve never been able to climb out of the sea into an inflatable dinghy, so I just clung on to theirs until they put a ladder down. Then they towed the dinghy in, threw me a line to knot around my chest and towed me to the foot of the ladder. I was soon aboard and provided with a dry towel that was colour-coordinated to my red T-shirt.

Enchantress had a touchy transmit button on the VHF radio and so used a hand-held unit to tell their companion boat, Natasha,  that they’d picked up a hitch-hiker. On  Natasha,  Federica passed messages on to anyone who would take them — to let Vern know I was fine, to stop him initiating an expensive search, and to get him some help securing the boat in harbour. The message went through to  Sudiki, a Gulfstar 50 sistership to  Enchantress. (While Federica was on the radio, a female French voice broke in to tell her to get off channel 16 as it is for emergency and rescue! When I met James and “Freddy” later, I asked her what she had said in reply and got a flood of Italian. Though I didn’t understand, I suspect there is a Frenchwoman around with a blistered ear.)

Enchantress and Natasha were headed for Fort-de-France. I badly wanted to go to Dominica and nearly asked to be thrown back in, but common sense prevailed. As soon as we arrived, Justin took me ashore to ask about ferry times. No luck, as the depot was closed tight. Next it was back to the dock nearest the anchorage. He went off to find a policeman to report me to, and I went to Customs on the off chance that it might be open.

A lovely young bride was posing for photographs in the garden as I trudged through, barefoot, blowsy, tousled, salty and myopic — with luck I walked behind all the family cameras. Customs was shut, and I spent a frustrating quarter-hour with the French phone system, discovering that it’s impossible to find an operator. The only toll-free number to answer yielded a fireman who listened to my tale of woe politely in spite of my terrible French, and assured me he knew of no way to call an operator either.

Back I went through the wedding party, now photographing bride and groom with their youngest attendants. Soon Justin and a pair of police officers arrived; my final view of the bride was as she picked her way to her car, blocked in by the police vehicles, and past my disreputable-looking self being grilled by the gendarmes. The police left us with names and phone numbers to show Customs we’d spoken to them and assured us that someone would call Dominica’s Coast Guard and abort any search plans.

My rescuers fed me, put me to bed, and lent me the fare to Dominica. The next morning I got the sixth-last seat on a 350-passenger ferry.

Meanwhile, Vern was still having adventures.
Just at dark, he finally learned I’d been rescued, when Chris and Duff of Sudiki came by and told him the news. Later they collected him, fed him, let him talk and wind down, put a call through to Enchantress via cell phone, Crosma and VHF radio, and generally made it possible for Vern to sleep that night.

Next morning early, Brian and James, who had welcomed  Sea Dream  to Dominica, were back to check up on Vern and help him move the boat to a mooring since it was gradually dragging ashore, when the Dominican Coast Guard came alongside with three officers aboard. One stayed in the bow with a 12-gauge riot gun pointing at Vern, one managed their boat with an automatic rifle across its seat, and  the third came aboard  Sea Dream and got Vern’s attention by taking him firmly by the arm.

“You are under arrest,” he said. “Pack a bag, lock the boat. You may be away for some time.” Vern faced three charges, in this order of importance: allowing Dominican nationals aboard before clearing Customs, not clearing Customs immediately upon arrival, and doing away with his wife.

Once Vern was in the police boat there was no further chat. He was taken to the head office of the Coast Guard, which is also the police force, and helped ashore since the landing is difficult. It took some time to produce a statement. Partway through, the atmosphere became much more civil.

Afterwards, one officer kindly pointed out a bakery where Vern could buy a much-belated breakfast. Then Vern was bundled back into the boat and taken to the ferry dock, where he cleared in through Customs and Immigration. Without pausing to think, he put my name on the crew list. The Immigration officer crossed it off with a scowl, saying, “We’ll clear her in if she arrives.” IF!

Vern was still waiting on the dock when the ferry decanted me at 4 o’clock that afternoon — and I was very pleased to see him.

We’ve proved it again: it ain’t over till the fat lady SINKS!

This article first appeared in the April 1999 issue of Caribbean Compass.

About Ruth Chesman

Canadians Ruth Chesman and her late husband, Vern, cruised the Lesser Antilles island chain in the Caribbean for many years aboard their Morgan 41, Sea Dream I.

Back home in Canada, the Chesmans were active members of the Fanshawe Yacht Club of London, Ontario. Ruth was always able to see — and communicate — the funny side of sailing, even in a potentially fatal situation. Her stories have appeared in Cruising World and Scuttlebutt, as well as in Caribbean Compass.

All three books speak for a younger generation who choose to reach for the adventure of crossing oceans and exploring new cultures sooner rather than later, who go despite tight budgets in small, uncomplicated boats without waiting for the comforts and wallets of middle age, and who, because they are women, don’t gloss over the challenging dynamics of relationships shared and tested in the intense intimacy of cruising 24/7 in the confines of a small vessel

There are several differences, however, between Tightwads on the Loose and the other two books.

The chief one is that while Janna and Torre spent much of their time pondering the degree (and sanity) of their commitment to the cruising endeavor (while largely relying on their more experienced partners), Wendy is a full-fledged collaborator from the start.

She, too, has a serious, more experienced sailor for a husband, but from the start she is in it to win it. You might say that Janna and Torre are (or at least start out as) girly girls, but Wendy makes you believe that she was infected by a taste for adrenalin since childhood, inculcated, she insists, by her father’s library of disaster-at-sea stories.

I was thrilled at last to read a contemporary sailing saga where the woman aboard is so fully engaged.

Another difference is that Tightwads  is the account of a longer, seven year cruise (pushing northward into the north Pacific,  Micronesia, the Phillipines, China and Japan), an itinerary that required Wendy and Garth to stop and work several times along the way to replenish the cruising kitty and make repairs.  Earning money is an issue many young couples considering cruising ask about, and this  couple’s resourcefulness in finding employment should be inspirational as well as entertaining.

One might think, because all three authors set sail across the Pacific from the West coast, that the stories could feel repetitive.  Certainly there are harbors all three visit, especially in the first legs of the journey, but it is testimony to the uniqueness of every cruise that each landfall feels fresh, each new character encountered a privilege to meet, and every adventure a stimulant to get out and do it yourself!

Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey is available through the Tightwads on the Loose eStore, through your independent bookseller or amazon.com.

More from this website

• Book review – Swept: Love With a Chance of Drowning, by Torre DeRoche: Review by Gwen Hamlin
• Sailing as a Metaphor for Marriage, by Janna Cawrse Esarey
• All book reviews

More from the web

• Wendy Hinman’s website

If you have a book that
like us you would like to review,
let us know!

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

It’s all too easy to follow the crowd on the well-worn rut around the world without doing your own diligent voyage planning and still expect to experience reasonable conditions doing so.

But the moment you think about bearing off left or right — treading the path less taken, as it were — when everyone else is going straight, having the knowledge to keep yourself in safe and comfortable sailing conditions becomes crucial.

An exceptional new tool has appeared on the scene to help every cruiser work out for him/herself the possibilities open to them to be adventurous while staying safe, and that new tool comes from one of the most respected names in cruising — Cornell.

World-renowned sailor and cruising author Jimmy Cornell and his son Ivan Cornell have teamed up to pair modern weather technology with the most classic of voyage planning tools– pilot charts.  The result is Cornell’s Ocean Atlas: Pilot Charts for All Oceans of the World.

What is the difference between Cornell’s Ocean Atlas and traditional pilot charts? 

U.S.N. Matthew Fontaine Maury 1855 (from en.wikipedia.org)

Pilot charts, first developed in the late 19th century by US Navy Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, consolidated weather, wind and current data gleaned from shipmasters’ logbooks. The purpose was to help captains plot routes across the sea that maximized favorable weather and sea conditions and avoided unfavorable ones. Prior to Maury’s efforts there was no reliable resource for this information.

In the decades since Maury, pilot charts have been relied upon by all serious seafarers.  Though updated periodically since then, traditional pilot charts continued to rely on data provided by shipmasters. and cruising sailors often found themselves in conditions not in alignment with what the pilot charts predicted.

In part, those differences stemmed from recent climate changes and in part from the weaknesses of uneven data collection and uneven standards of reporting.  Consider that the majority of those intrepid shipmasters whose reports contributed to the making of traditional pilot charts were sailing commercial routes with the result that the bulk of reports came from major shipping lanes, while less travelled regions like the tropics or high latitudes were under-reported.

Most cruising sailors quickly discover the inaccuracies of  traditional navigation charts for the out-of-the-way places we like to explore, since the original explorers’ chartings have been little refined because the areas experience relatively light traffic.  The same is true for pilot chart data.  Think of any region you have sailed regularly and consider whether you would want  to plan a voyage there based on the reports of just a few vessels.

Additionally, the large ships of a century ago needed more wind to sail, so that anything less than 12-15 knots might be considered a calm!  At the same time,  think how many open-sea tropical storm tracks which never made landfall or crossed major shipping lanes went unreported in eras before our modern weather-tracking eyes in the sky.

To present a much more accurate picture the Cornells have used computers and twenty years of the latest data collected from weather satellites constantly scanning all parts the globe.  As they anticipated, this has revealed many areas of inaccurate information.  In the Introduction, the authors highlight a very specific example of the difference this can make to sailors setting out on a Pacific crossing.

Pacific Ocean / March, Old

Pacific Ocean / March, New (Cornell’s Ocean Atlas)

For cruisers, there were also some practical issues with old-style pilot charts.  A large ship with a big chart table in the bridge has plenty of room to lay out the charts needed to cover a entire voyage, but a private sailboat has more cramped nav stations.  In a typical cruising boat like ours was, it was hard to lay out and compare charts for our course across the Pacific from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to the Marquesas, because we needed pilot charts for both the northern and southern hemispheres.  For a trip around the world one might need as many as eight sets of pilot charts!

So another improvement on traditional charts that the Cornells have made in their Atlas is that they have sized the set to fit comfortably on a sailboat’s nav desk, and framed the pages to present the data cruising sailors would need on typical passages.  So, for example, a cruiser planning a Pacific voyage has 47 pages of pilot chart info for that crossing, with the whole Pacific shown on the right-hand page and on the left more detailed data for the sections cruisers typically are at any given month of the year. And, all the oceans of the world are included in just one book!

Furthermore, Cornell’s Ocean Atlas is annotated with commentary about climate patterns  and conditions to plan for based not only on the Cornells’ extensive world sailing experience, but input from some of the most respected and familiar ocean weather experts from Europe, the USA, and New Zealand.

Even with all these improvements, pilots charts can still appear to be for the new cruiser a mind-boggling tool to master.  Flip open to any page and there are all these small boxes with green arrows, red lines and mysterious wind-rose symbols that look like a child’s game of jacks!

However, the system is clearly explained in Cornell’s introduction, and with just a little application, it will soon appear intuitive.

Recently I sat in on Jimmy Cornell’s first SSCA (Seven Seas Cruising Association) webinar on using the World Atlas charts for voyage planning from which I picked up his simple yet ingenious technique for applying the pilot chart information to any passage.  Simply lay a piece of string on the rhumb line from point A to Point B, then use you finger to curve the string into a course line that maximizes your passage-making conditions, then pencil in your final course and, of course, make note of the waypoints.

Cornell’s Ocean Atlas is a serious tool for any cruiser planning any ocean passage.

As the Cornells conclude in their Introduction, “Our main objective (in Cornell’s Ocean Atlas) has been to create the kind of publication we would have greatly appreciated if it had been available when we sailed on any of the five circumnavigations of the globe which we share between us.”

Ivan and Jimmy Cornell, Cape Horn

More information (external links)

• Find out more about Cornell’s Ocean Atlas
• Read the complete introduction to Cornell’s Ocean Atlas
• About Jimmy Cornell
• About Ivan Cornell
• About US Navy Lieutenant Maury (Wikipedia)

Read also on this website

• Book Review – A Passion for the Sea by Jimmy Cornell
• World Cruising Destinations, Jimmy Cornell’s new book!
• All book reviews

If you have a book that like us
you would like to review,
let us know!

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

When I first decided to set out to the Bahamas aboard my 40-foot wooden Rosborough ketch, I didn’t really contemplate the possibility that I would be wholly unsuccessful at finding crew interested in a free tropical vacation. But, alas, people have lives and responsibilities, and when Annie Laurie was prepared for sea, I found I was left with little choice other than to muster up the courage to set out on my own.

ANNIE LAURIE, off Bahia Honda, Cuba. Photo by Laura McCrossin

I had sailed south from Nova Scotia the winter before, with the help of my sister and a few good friends. I had experienced the allure of Cuba and Mexico, and spent many months anchored in Key West. As I planned to take Annie Laurie home to Canada for the upcoming summer, I decided a detour to the Bahamas was in order before the long slog home.

While in Nova Scotia, I had sailed many times alone, but never more than the 60-mile passage between my hometown of Halifax and the nearby town of Lunenburg.

I knew my boat, and was confident and comfortable doing everything aboard, engine-wise and otherwise. I only really sought-out crew when I knew there would be overnight trips involved with a passage, as I didn’t have a working autopilot aboard.

After looking over the charts of the Abacos, Eleuthera, and the Exumas, I knew I could make my way around without the necessity of an over-nighter, so with that excuse for crew no longer valid, I began to convince myself it was high time I challenged myself with an extended solo trip.

As I made final preparations, many people (who’d never sailed a 6-foot draft boat) readily assured me I drew too much to cruise the Bahamas, and would have to choose an alternate destination. In addition, I was informed toredo worms were rampant, and my mahogany-on-oak boat would look like a sponge by the time I was ready to sail back to the United States. As doubts compounded, I fortunately met a sailing couple that had cruised the Bahamas with their wooden boat years earlier without an issue, and now cruised the same waters aboard their 9-foot draft steel schooner.

As I got underway, I was greeted with repeated doses of surprise by many sailing couples, as well as men sailing solo. I began to feel I carried a certain responsibility to spread the understanding that women are just as capable as men of cruising alone.

My first, and only, Cuban cigar, following a stressful reef crossing in 25 knots and no charts

Many didn’t understand how a woman was up to the physical challenges, to which I could only respond that that is the least of one’s challenges when cruising. On a 40-foot boat, Marconi-rigged and with a roller-furled Genoa, the sails were not the least bit heavy, or difficult to raise or trim. The most physically demanding aspect of handling Annie Laurie was hauling the 33-lb Bruce anchor and 30 feet of chain without the convenience of a windlass (I know I have carried heavier boxes of groceries into the house from the car). Sometimes I wish sailing was more physically demanding, as whenever I’m underway for any length of time, I usually find myself rooting through cubbies to dig out my my fat pants.

Another one of my favorite reactions I received was “Aren’t you scared?” Sure I was scared. Most of the time, might I add. I think every careful sailor, who is in constant mind of the possible worst-case scenario, will carry a certain amount of fear and concern at any given moment. It’s what keeps you safe. Couples may handle that fear by having each other, and men sailing alone might handle it by quietly telling themselves that everything will be okay, and that things aren’t as bad as they seem, and by reminding themselves they made every prudent preparation before ever leaving the dock. That is human, and that’s what I did.

Sure I was scared. Most of the time, might I add. Photo by Laura McCrossin

There is a certain amount of mental stamina required, mostly to deal with the monotony of ones self during those days when other cruisers are scarce. Having a best friend aboard of the canine or feline variety can provide a sense of calm in any situation, and can even provide occasional on-board entertainment when they inadvertently fall overboard, or seek attention by posing for a picture.

Cabin Girl, Effie McCrossin. Photo by Laura McCrossin

Effie, named for the oldest Grand Banks schooner still afloat (Effie M. Morrissey, now known as Ernestina) continues to be my loyal companion, and was with me through some of the most difficult challenges of my life. Through stormy seas, and turbulent relationships, she never left my side.

Finally, it is human nature to help other people, especially if you see them facing a challenge alone. I was the grateful recipient of many acts of kindness during my voyage, whether by receiving help setting a second anchor in a gale, getting my engine started after a filter change and I’d allowed too much air through the system for the umpteenth time, or when I met an electronics expert from South Africa who fixed my autopilot and had it working for the first time in years.

People were always coming out of the woodwork, without solicitation, to lend their assistance. And there is something about eating dinner alone that seems to tug on heartstrings of sailing couples, and when anchored amongst other boats, I rarely ate dinner without good company.

So if my experiences are any example, then I find it increasingly difficult to claim I sailed the Bahamas alone. If I had known the people I was about to meet, and the shared experiences and memories I was about to make, my worries before departure would have been greatly alleviated.

And if you’re single, you’ll undoubtedly meet a few admirers along the way, and you might just meet your soul mate. I did.

Phil and I, No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne, FL. Photo by Ann Spencer

About Laura McCrossin

Laura was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and began her sailing career on tall ships in 2001.

For the last 6 years, she has enjoyed the freedom of sailing her own wooden ketch from Canada to Cuba, Mexico, the Bahamas, and many ports in between.

She has just published her book based on her experiences “Written in Water: An Uncharted Life Aboard a Wooden Boat”, available now on Amazon, or through her website www.scotiansailor.com

A Kindle version is available on Amazon.

Read also on this website

• Debbie Leisure: What I learned on my first solo trip to the Bahamas
• Debbie Leisure learns to sail her boat single-handed
• Getting started on tall-ships, by Stephanie Katz
• Single Women Sailing, by Gwen Hamlin (Admiral’s Angle column):
  Part 1 and Part 2
• The  Need to Know: Sheri Schneider is on her own in the Pacific after her husband is evacuated, by Gwen Hamlin  (Admiral’s Angle column)

Would you like to share your sailing story?

Let us know.

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

Her fans should not be worried. These four years in an out-of-the way canyon in California, immersed in the strange culture of rural iconoclasts, trying to do their own thing, their own way, for as little money as possible, is as much an adventure as any they have had in foreign waters.

And, Lin and Larry, endeavoring to build a new boat from scratch and doing it the hard way – far from boatyards, without even such fundamentals as mail, phone and electricity and in the face of adversities like flood, fire, and packrats – in their own fashion fit right in.

A cruiser’s openness to the other ways people choose to live, their readiness to band together to help neighbors in need, their gameness to throw together food and music to celebrate, well, just about anything, their focus on getting done what needs to be done, makes them good neighbors in the unusual community of Bull Canyon.

But this is a transition time for Lin and Larry in more ways than one. In addition to stepping up from a smaller boat to a larger one, it is a time set aside for Lin to step up to challenges she has set herself as a writer. Her goal is to actually support them with her craft while Larry exercises his in the boat shed. Lin explores those challenges – the doubts, the thrills, the ego bruises – with great honesty.

It also becomes a time for them both to reflect on things they left behind when they sailed away, decisions they made blithely in the flush of youth and love, conventions they have easily ignored. Those things range from connections to family, children and pets as well as to capital, place, conveniences and things. Land life, even the rugged version the Pardeys have opted for, has its seductions, and, despite good intentions not to get too attached to any of it, they do begin to put down roots.

It’s a hardly a spoiler to say they choose sailing again. We know that they do. The process by which they make this transition brings a new maturity to their choice of lifestyle and reaffirms its values, in particular the durability of cruising friendships, for all of us.

Lin and Larry’s satisfaction in each hard-wrought accomplishment – whether is it devising a means to bring running water to the cottage, producing a beautifully crafted rib for the boat, nurturing a garden from rocky soil, or completing a satisfying book project – reaffirms their commitment to their lifestyle choice and to each other.

It is always bittersweet to leave things behind, but when Taleisin rolls out of the boat shed, we feel along with Lin that frisson of excitement for what lies ahead.

Lin and Larry Pardey Return to US for Autumn Sail Boatshows and SSCA Gam

For the first time in seven years, the two voyagers and sailing authors who have been called, “the enablers” will be presenting seminars and participating at four Sailboat shows in September and October. They will also be signing copies of Lin’s latest book Bull Canyon, a Boatbuilder, a Writer and Other Wildlife. Just released this spring, Publishers Weekly labeled Bull Canyon “significant, highly romantic and admirable” and adds “readers may feel as if they’re following the fantastic adventures of an old friend.” Midwest Book Review calls Bull Canyon “A riveting memoir of a path less taken.”

Confirmed dates for these shows are:

Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival – September 8-11

Newport International Boat Show – September 15-18, booth and seminars hosted by Blue Water Sailing Magazine

Seven Seas Cruising Association – Annapolis Gam – September 23-25

United States Sailboat Show, Annapolis – October 6-10

Seminars hosted by Cruising World Magazine, Booth hosted by Thesailingchannel.tv

Along with presenting seminars on several topics including, Storm Tactics, Writing and Video afloat, Cost control as you Cruise, Lin and Larry will be available for six hours each day during these shows and festivals to answer questions and sign books people wish to bring along. For descriptions of seminars and further information about these appearances, go to www.landlpardey.com.

Read also on this website

Lin Pardey  interviews 11 cruising couples fresh from their first major crossing – and finds out what they worried about and what they learned.

• First-time voyagers — What did they worry about that never happened? (Part 1): Worries about bad weather and gear failures
• First-time voyagers — What did they worry about that never happened? (Part 2):  Other common worries as well as suggestions for those preparing to set sail.

More information (external links)

• For  further information on Bull Canyon: A Boat Builder, A Writer and other Wildlife visit www.linpardey.com or email jim@paracay.com

If you have a book that like us you would like to review, let us know!

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.