I was still a teenager at the time that Robin Lee Graham completed his solo-circumnavigation of the globe – and National Geographic published their series of articles on his travels. I remember reading these articles with the level of interest usually reserved for the NG stories featuring naked native pictures (Hey - I was a teenager and it was a different, pre-internet, time!). I was fascinated and completely engaged. However, I don’t remember ever thinking at the time that I could or would do anything remotely similar.

Years later when I read “Dove”, the book that Graham wrote and published to tell his story, I was hooked. A coming of age book, “Dove” had it all – boats, sailing, adventure and unique and different countries and cultures. It was “Captain’s Courageous” with romance!

It was actually a bareboat charter vacation in the British Virgin Islands almost 25 years ago that planted the seed – the bit of grit in an oyster that grows into a pearl. But it was the reading that I did after that vacation adventure which added the layers of dreams and details that was eventually harvested 9 years ago when I moved aboard Kelly Rae.

I read many books and periodicals with stories by a wide variety of cruisers over those intervening years. However, it was always the books by Lin and Larry Pardey that had the greatest effect, however. Their books absolutely fueled the dream – but, even more importantly, made it seem achievable to a middle aged man living in the land-locked state of Colorado. Their common sense, simple form of cruising appealed to me. While my own version of the dream has evolved to include far more gear, technology and miscellaneous stuff than ever found their way onto Serafyn or Taleisen, by today’s standards I live a simple cruising life.

“Dove” and the Pardey books formed the core of the life I now lead.

When I arrived in Annapolis last week, I anchored next to a nicely rigged and maintained Tayana 37, S/V Satori, with a young couple on board. Now, I have to admit that for the ubiquitous older, retired cruiser – like me – boats with younger couples or families aboard are like catnip to the cat. I always like to meet and greet and try to connect with them. Their stories and cruising directions are always different than the norm and often very interesting. And, they are often beginning new directions in their lives – where we are only adding highlights to our previous life endeavors.

Meeting Lee and Rachel on Satori in the course of a few row-by chats convinced that I really wanted to learn more. I invited and they joined me for cocktail hour the next evening. And, they did not disappoint. The nickel version of their story included a few years of cubicle work life after college and an epiphany that a cruising life would be a major improvement. They bought Satori 2 years ago and did a major refit, launched it just two months ago, had gotten married two weeks previous to our meeting and would be departing on their first major jump into their new life with the ARC rally to the Bahamas 3 weeks hence.

Whew! I get tired just thinking of all of that.

I asked what had motivated their decision to go cruising. Lee responded, “Have you ever read ‘Dove’?” Needless to say that created a lively interchange. Later in the evening, Lee mentioned that he and a friend had recently completed a 4000 mile bike ride from Portland, Oregon to Baltimore, Maryland. I commented that I don’t believe that physically I would ever have been capable of such a trip and I know that the seemingly endless hours of pedaling would be brutal mentally. Lee said “I listened to a lot of audio books – including several of the Pardey books.”

I have to say that this comment had the bells of irony pealing loudly in my head. To be pedaling over the mountains of Colorado and across the plains of Kansas while listening to Serafyn’s European Adventure is a unique combination.

I was struck by the fact Lee and Rachel, people less than ½ my age who had not even been alive when Robin Lee Graham completed his voyage, had had their dream created and fueled by much the same sources as my own. There is timelessness to this and to the cruising lifestyle that intrigues and impresses me.

At the Annapolis Sailboat Show the next day, I raced around the show on the quick tour, obsessively checking off items on the To-Do-List. Around mid-afternoon I found myself standing in front of The LL Pardey Publications booth talking to Lin Pardy. I introduced myself by saying that I had read many of their books, had retired and bought a boat and had been cruising for nine years. And, I told her “I blame you and Larry for everything!” Lin had obviously heard this line before, responding without any hesitation “We accept all credit but take no blame!”

I told her the story of Lee’s Pardey-book fueled cross country bike ride, knowing that she would enjoy both the irony of the story and the fact that Larry and her lifetime of cruising adventures were inspiring an entirely new generation of cruisers.

Oh, and I bought two new Pardey books, these signed by Lin, which, once read over the next month or two, will be shelved in the permanent library on board Kelly Rae right next to ‘Dove’ and the other Pardey books.

It can never hurt to add a bit more fuel to the dream.

Best to all.