All those New Year resolutions and good intentions!
Walks: We led members of the Albuquerque Chapter of American Pilgrims on the Camino on a trek along the Rio Grande Bosque on New Year’s Day.
Reading: First, not exactly reading, we indulged in Netflix’s gripping One Hundred Years of Solitude, based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel.
Our reading has included books by three New Mexico authors, starting with Hampton Sides’ fascinating and much honored The Wide Wide Sea centered on the third and final journey of Captain Cook. I am impressed with the way Sides holds the readers’ interest by telling a complex story through short passages and vignettes without overwhelming us with his research.
We’ve also read Rebecca Reynolds’s Thresholds of Change, which we will share with our little EAR (Elder Activist Readers) book group, and we have enjoyed our friend Rosalie Rayburn’s third book in her Digger Doyle Mystery series: Windswept, set in beautifully depicted New Mexico landscapes.
Writing: Kent is writing and expanding on more stories, some left out of We Ran Away to Sea, and some new ones. Here is the beginning of one:
A Shortcut and a Close Shave
Shortcuts can save time and effort, but sometimes there are unexpected complications.
Sailing to the Atlantic side of Florida from Ft. Myers on the Gulf Coast requires a long trip, but…
Shortly after we learned that We Ran Away to Sea was a finalist for the Global Book Awards, we received notification that the book had won a Silver Medal in the category of Biography/Memoir. There are still more award announcements awaiting in the next few months. I expressed my reservations about awards, still it is nice to be noticed and to learn that someone (beisdes our friends and family) thinks highly of the book.
Shortcuts can save time and effort, but sometimes there are unexpected complications.
Sailing to the Atlantic side of Florida from Ft. Myers on the Gulf Coast requires a long trip south to the Florida Keys, then east and north around Miami, but if a boat is small enough there is a shortcut via the Okeechobee Waterway that runs between Ft. Myers and St. Lucie. The limitation is that mast of the boat has to fit under a railway lift bridge that crosses the waterway.
Coot’s mast was short enough to fit under the open bridge, but with little room to spare. We approached the open un-attended bridge with a strong current in the narrow channel pushing us forward. Just before we were going to pass under it, suddenly, without warning, horns blared, lights flashed and instantly the bridge began to descend.
Too late to stop or turn around, I hit the throttle, envisioning our mast caught between the rails and shaved off by the oncoming train like a whisker in a Norelco razor. We made it with inches to spare—I heard the ting, ting, ting of the masthead antenna as it scraped beneath the descending bridge.
We were heading home, and although we didn’t know it then, this would be one of our last narrow escapes on Coot.
Kent and I are enjoying a lovely, quiet Christmas at home, but we have made “Hilma’s Holiday Glögg,” spelled Glug (but pronounced gloog) on the recipe card typed by Evelyn Easley, mother of my friend Linda, probably 60 years ago. No one seemed to know who Hilma was, but the aroma of raisins, cinnamon, sugar, and cardamon seeds heating, before they are added to a gallon(!) of Burgundy wine brings back years of holiday memories. In the 1950s and 60s, drinking alcohol wasn’t common among our relatives and friends. Evelyn was a bit conspiratorial as she introduced me to this drink, which she served hot in a teacup with a dollop of brandy as we visited in her kitchen one Christmas when I was home visiting. I’m sure after the cycle of heating and re-heating, the alcohol remaining in the original gallon is minimal, but it seemed a bit daring at the time and a new experience to be treated as an adult by my childhood friend’s mother.
So, here’s a gift of Hilma’s Holiday Glug recipe! Enjoy!
Book News
We Ran Away to Sea received two unexpected honors this month. The book received first place in the Royal Dragonfly Book Award in the Letters, Journals, and Diaries category. When I saw that category for this award, I thought it would be a good one to apply for because the number of entries would be smaller than for the category memoir. And I was right! The book is also a finalist in the Global Book Award memoir category. We’ll find out in a few days if the book is one of the winners.
I’m a bit skeptical of book awards, even though I researched to avoid those that are solely money-making scams, but it is nice to be recognized. Thanks to all of you who have bought the book, especially those who have written reviews.
Kent also gave a presentation to the Sandia Civitan Club. This lovely small group meets for breakfast every Friday and does tremendous volunteer work to benefit people with disabilities. It was a pleasure to meet them and learn about the work they do.
Kent’s been writing something for the past several days that I haven’t yet seen. I wonder what it is?
In the flurry of getting ready for what we intended to be a pilgrim walk in France that got switched to an Overseas Adventure Travel excursion to Egypt, I’ve neglected updates to this blog. Here is the latest from our newsletter, and a promise to do better in the future!
Linnea and Kent adventuring in EgyptAnd experiencing ancient and modern GreeceAmazon Sales
Amazon Book Sales
Would this encourage you to buy the book?I didn’t make any goofy videos for Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok while we were away, so perhaps that is why Amazon sales of We Ran Away to Sea suddenly slumped during the last week of November and the first week of December. Alas!
We’d been selling about 20 books per month on Amazon for most of the year, but it appears that We Ran Away to Sea has hit the doldrums.
If you’re still looking for just the right present for someone (hint), the book is readily available at local bookstores, on Amazon, or even from us.
If you’d like to give us a present, please share your responses to the book in a sentence or two.And a big thank you to those who have already done so! Or, send us a picture of you with the book!
Overlooking the River Nile from the Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan
Now that we’re home, once I get a Christmas letter written, I’ll return to writing my memoir tentatively titled Once a Pilgrim about my 2010 life-changing solo pilgrimage from Le-Puy-en-Velay, France, to Pamplona, Spain, (including a May snowstorm in the Pyrenees). Kent and I are also compiling and editing the stories we left out of We Ran Away to Sea.
Kent gave two well-received book talks, one just two days before we left for Europe and one just four days after our return.
Don’t give up on us! We’re not dead yet, but still processing the thousands of years of history we walked through in Egypt and Greece, and the U.S. election, which took the wind out of our sails.
Kent is reading Joseph Conrad in an oversized volume I must have inherited from my dad called A Conrad Argosy. Now there’s a real writer for you!
Marlow speaking in The Heart of Darkness (near the beginning of that novella), “…like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in a flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.” And will come again.
Kent reading A Conrad Argosy. Doubleday, 1942. woodcuts by Hans Alexander Mueller
The goat has gone back to its original owner. As was evident to our neighbor and all the neighbors, the fencing around his property was inadequate. I admired his independent streak and was charmed by his fixation on our front door. Goodbye, goat! I hope you will find a more suitable new home. Anybody want a goat?
Our friend Jim decided his health wasn’t up to heading across the Pacific in a sailboat one more time. He was right, and shortly afterward ended up hospitalized in intensive care.
If you’d like to support Jim, look for three books: Windswept by his late wife Ginny Sollars, A Bachelor’s Paradise, and the Yamamoto Affair. The first is an account of the family’s years sailing the Pacific; the second is about Jim’s adventures in the Pacific as a bachelor; and the third is a gripping novel of suspense and intrigue inspired by his own diving experiences and the historical World War II Japanese admiral, Yamamoto.
As far as we know, the boat is still in San Carlos and for sale. Anybody want a boat?
The Book
I keep adjusting the ads on Amazon, and the book continues to sell an average of 20 books a month, not (yet) more than the cost of the ads. We’d like more readers to discover the book. It’s gotten more ratings on Good Reads and Amazon, but we haven’t had a new review in several months. Hint, hint! You don’t have to be a great writer; just share your honest reaction. Even star ratings help, but a few words are much more meaningful to us and readers trying to decide whether to read or buy the book.
The three copies at the Albuquerque Public Library continue to circulate.
Events
If you’re within hailing distance of Albuquerque, Kent will read at Books on the Bosque this coming Saturday, October 5. We hope to see some of you there. Books on the Bosque is a lovely, relatively new independent bookstore with many activities worth checking out.
Kent will also speak at the Tony Hillerman Branch of the Albuquerque Public Library on Saturday, October 26, at 1 pm., a shorter version of his illustrated January presentation at Oasis.
Book Awards
We Ran Away to Sea is a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award finalist. Winners will be announced sometime in October. We’ve also submitted the book for a few other awards
The most unusual is The Wishing Shelf. Based in England, the award is chosen by reading groups in London and Stockholm, Sweden. Unlike most awards, where you send in your application fee and wait for award announcements, this one asks for a book description before allowing you to submit a book for consideration. The invitation from the award administrator felt like a mini award.
He wrote: “Thanks very much for contacting us. I had a look at your book on Amazon, and I thought it looked very interesting. I very much liked the look of the cover and the blurb, and the Look Inside seems to flow well. I see you also have a number of reviews, which I read with interest. So, yes,please send me a PDF of the book plus a JPEG or PDF of the covers.”
Other Stuff
Since I didn’t get a newsletter out in August, I’m doing a lot of catching up here.
Kent and I are editing stories we left out of WeRan Away to Sea, but work is going slowly because …
I’m finally working on my book, working title “Once a Pilgrim,” about the first half and maybe the second half of my first Camino.
Picture of Vézelay Courtesy of luctheo on Pixabay
We’re planning travels after being home all summer: next week to San Francisco to see family, and on October 28 to France, where we intend to walk the less traveled Voie de Vézelay, which begins at the Basilica of Mary Magdalene in Vézelay and eventually meets the Camino Frances in St. Jean Pied-de-Port at the Spanish border. We won’t manage more than one-third of the 900 kilometers in just over three weeks of walking. Weather will be unpredictable but probably not hot, and many pilgrim lodgings will have closed for the season. I’ll try to post on my blog, Caminobleu.com, or at least on Facebook because writing blogs on a cell phone after a day of walking is not easy. And there may be days with no internet.
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While we were in Indonesia in May, I saw a notice on my phone for a 36-foot sailboat for sale in Albuquerque for the ridiculously low asking price of $10,000. “Very odd to find an ocean-going sailboat in Albuquerque,” I thought, and out of curiosity, after we returned home, I wrote a note to the seller asking for more information. She told me that she had recently inherited the boat from her grandfather but not his sailing genes to go with it and wanted to sell it. It was an old boat built in Taiwan in 1977 and stored in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. She could tell me almost nothing about the boat and said to contact a fellow in San Carlos for more information. I did not know about his connection to the boat, but I wrote asking for more details. I got very little information in response, so I turned to Google and found an old for-sale notice for the boat. It had a few pictures and a partial equipment list. It had at one time been outfitted for blue-water cruising.
I began thinking I could afford it. Wouldn’t having a boat down on the Sea of Cortez, a body of water I had long dreamed of cruising, be fun? I imagined Linnea and I could make quick trips down to San Carlos, then gunk-hole up and down Baja and the mainland. We should not have to upgrade expensive equipment if we didn’t plan on extensive voyaging. So, we made a quick trip to San Carlos to take a look.
We spent a night on the way with our friend Jim in Green Valley, Arizona. Jim had a boat built in Taiwan in 1977 and sailed the Pacific for years before returning to Los Angeles and selling the boat. Then, about the time Pam, the boys, and I sailed through the Atlantic and the Caribbean, he took his wife and family on another voyage through the Pacific.
Jim and I grew up in Sheridan, Wyoming. His older brother was my high school classmate. Jim was interested in the boat, and because he was familiar with boats of that vintage built in Taiwan, I invited him to join us. He would know more about what we were looking at than I would. However, he declined because a back issue limited his walking.
After arriving in San Carlos, I investigated the cost of storing the boat and decided it was more than I wanted to pay. The whole trip had been a fool’s errand; nevertheless, I wanted to see the boat. It seemed to be in good shape for a vessel its age and would be a bargain for a younger person willing to put in a lot of labor (and some money) to bring it up to cruising condition.
On our return trip to Albuquerque, we spent the night with Jim again, and I filled him in on what I had found. Jim had just finished filling quart bottles of his homemade rum when we arrived late afternoon. We had a pizza for dinner and sampled his rum before and after.
“Two old men and a boat would make a good story!” Linnea said, going to bed and leaving us to our boat talk. We drank another glass of rum and imagined two old men getting an old boat and fixing it up. They wouldn’t just for gunk-hole around the sea of Cortez. Oh, no! They’d spend a year or two or three sailing the Pacific. My, that was good rum.
Our talk ignited a dream I thought I had put to rest 25 years ago when Pam and I left our boat for the last time. Our talk of the boat, or perhaps it was the rum, ignited something in Jim, as well, because, after a third glass, we were no longer imaging what a good story it would make; we were talking about how we should proceed to check out the boat more thoroughly and what it would take to prepare it for voyaging in the Pacific.
Hearing about our ideas in the morning, Linnea still thought “Two Old Men and a Boat” would make a great story. Maybe Jim and I could make it happen.
Back home in Albuquerque, all I could think about was the boat and the opportunity, even at my age, to fulfill my long-held dream of sailing the Pacific. I planned to return to the boat for a thorough inspection with my new partner, Jim, who had some medical appointments and a trip planned that would postpone our trip to Mexico for a month and a half.
Yesterday morning, after a couple of weeks of not hearing from Jim, he called to tell me he could not proceed. The medical report on his back was discouraging, and while vacationing with his family, he realized he could no longer keep up.
I should not have been surprised that Jim was not up to it. Nevertheless, I was so gripped by the idea that I couldn’t drop it. Who else did I know who might be footloose and crazy enough to join me sailing the Pacific? Maybe my childhood friend, Dick, a passably healthy, active widower, might be tempted?
“Hi, Dick! Do you want to sail the Pacific with me in an old boat?” I ran out of minutes on my phone as I talked, but I could tell he was excited about getting out and doing something adventuresome. However, he’d never sailed, never had a dream of sailing, and this would probably not be an adventure he would have chosen. Nevertheless, after talking on the phone, I wrote a long e-mail laying out everything I thought would be involved and spelled out my dream.
Where was Linnea in all of this? I knew she would not, and I did not expect her to give up her active and engaged life in Albuquerque to live on a boat for a year or two. I imagined she would fly to places we visited, and we could tour them together. She might accompany us on some of the shorter passages from island to island. We’ve talked about visiting Australia together for years; that is where we’d wait out the typhoon season for several months.
I had not thought about the burden I would be dumping on her—the constant maintenance and repairs our property requires. Nor was I thinking about how my traipsing off to sail the Pacific without her would seem to her. Did I not care for her? Or for the life that we had made together? She knew that my earlier sailing dream had formed when I was anxious to escape the life I was living. Was I doing the same thing again? This morning, as we talked, I realized that I didn’t want to escape anything. I love the life I have now.
So, I wrote Dick to apologize for even bringing up my crazy idea with him—I knew this was not his thing. I was acting on the rebound from losing Jim’s partnership. I wrote to the boat owner and told her I was no longer interested in buying. As Linnea says, I don’t have to sail the Pacific to tell a story about two old men and an old boat. I could make up a good story. Maybe I will.
Below: Kent at home and scenes from San Carlos.
Postscript: I was about to post this when I got a call that there was a goat at our front door! I opened the door, and this is what I saw:
Goat at the door.
Kent says, “Dear, I said I want a BOAT, not a GOAT!
Two old sailors. Will they know when it’s time to quit?
In late July, Kent and I (Linnea) drove from Albuquerque to San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico, to see a 1977 Chung Hwa thirty-six-foot ketch listed at a bargain price.
It was a hot trip, with stops for green chile cheeseburgers at the Owl Bar in San Antonio, NM, and an overnight at the historic Palace Hotel in funky, picturesque Silver City, where Kent got a haircut and we watched karaoke at the friendly Little Toad Creek Brewery. Everybody was friendly in Silver City, including the guy who must have slept somewhere on the street.
Silver City haircut.
Palace Hotel in downtown Silver City. And we sold a book to the bookshop next door!
We bumped along bumper to bumper through downtown Nogales to cross the border into Mexico on Saturday morning. After three or four hours and a few wrong turns, we found our way to Hermosillo and San Carlos.
We had an hour to look at the boat, still filled with the belongings of the deceased owner. When Kent saw the storage fees for the Marina Seca and the amount of work the boat would probably require, he decided to forget it.
Checking out the dreamboat
We spent two days exploring what San Carlos has to offer, visiting a scenic overlook, a couple of beaches, and some funky places beyond the paved road. Our modest motel had good air conditioning and wifi and was within a fifteen-minute walk of the restaurants, shops, and bars along the marina’s waterfront.
Beached sailor Kent in San Carlos, Sonora
But, when we got back to Green Valley, Arizona, after an almost two-hour wait to cross the border into the USA, Jim Sollars, another sailor and native of Sheridan, Wyoming, was excited about the boat. We’d first met Jim in February through his brother Sheldon, Kent’s high school classmate.
Jim had sailed the Pacific twice, once alone and once with his wife and two daughters. His late wife, Ginny, published Windswept, the story of the family’s three years aboard their boat, Holokiki. Jim more recently published A Bachelor’s Paradise, filled with wild tales of his years as a young, single sailor.
After pizza for dinner, Jim and Kent stayed up late, drinking homemade rum, telling stories, and convincing themselves that two old men could take off into the Pacific on an almost fifty-year-old boat that may need considerable work.
“It would make a good story, anyway,” I said as I headed to bed with a good book, leaving the octogenarians to their plans and dreams.
“Maybe I’ll meet you in Puerto Vallarta, Hawaii, or Fiji.”
Kent has an appointment with the Neptune Society this week.
“Ask them,” I said. “If your body is lost at sea, will you get your money back?”
Rio Grande from Central Avenue Bridge, Albuquerque
If you have read We Ran Away to Sea, you know that Pam and Kent ran away partly because they were concerned about the environmental impact of America’s consumer-driven lifestyle.
Elder Activist Readers (EAR)
More recently, Kent and I have participated in book discussions in a small group we call EAR (Elder Activist Readers), spearheaded by Esther Jantzen, the author of the children’s novel Walk: Jamie Bacon’s Secret Mission on the Camino de Santiago. Esther, like me, was inspired by her experiences as a pilgrim. Over the past three years, our little reading group has read eighteen books and become more knowledgeable about the environmental threats to our planet. We’ve also studied the history of our current crisis and have taken small steps to support people and organizations working on solutions.
Geoff Boerne
Pam and Kent encountered Geoff Boerne’s Lo Entropy in Mexico in the 1990s. Sailed by two young Brits, Ian and Alan, the ship seemed to be in dire straits the last time Pam and Kent saw her. Kent concluded his Lo Entropy story, “I would like to think Alan made a go of his venture in the end, but it certainly looked like Lo Entropy had run out of energy.”
So, what did happen to her? I discovered a film on YouTube, The Cuba Connection by Claudio von Planta, telling the story of the ship before Pam and Kent met her. Lo Entropy was constructed mainly of recycled materials, although most of the steel had to be purchased new. Her first mission was a partly successful attempt to deliver donated supplies to Cuba, where people were suffering from the impact of the United States boycotts.
I discovered a website authored by Geoff Boerne, the majority shareholder and Managing Director of Celtic Cruises Ltd., whose only asset is Lo Entropy. Geoff and another unpaid director, Nick Rodgers, are endeavoring to keep Lo Entropy afloat as a wind and hydrogen-powered transport vessel.
According to the Transport Environment website, shipping produces at least three percent of the transport industry’s carbon. Googling “sailing and hydrogen” reveals numerous websites and articles about recent efforts to create “zero energy” shipping. In 2022, Geoff Boerne published “A Milestone for Sail Cargo Pilot Project: Goal and Hydrogen Concept.” Cruise and transport companies such as Norway’s Hurtigruten (which plans to launch an energy-efficient cruise ship by 2030) are looking into zero-energy transport. A return to sailing ships, assisted by green technology, is a promising alternative to diesel fuels. Maybe in the future, we will all, like Greta Thunberg, be crossing the oceans under wind power.
Geoff wrote to me, “Lo Entropy’s sails are currently assisted by an electric motor that doubles as a powerful generator when the propeller is free-spinning or driven by the diesel engine. We hope to replace the diesel engine with a hydrogen-fueled (ICE) internal combustion engine. Times are changing. Toyota has now produced a hydrogen combustion engine, so we are considering eliminating the expensive fuel cell and using hydrogen to fuel a hydrogen combustion engine.”
A hydrogen system combined with wind and solar will produce energy for a two-hour capacity battery bank that will convert the excess energy to hydrogen and store it for propulsion when needed. Geoff is seeking investors to help refit the vessel. He now lives in Denmark and can be contacted through his website https://www.greenseatransport.com/ or his email address, Loentropy@gmail.com)
Lo Entropy, 2024
Peter Roberts
Peter met with EAR on February 29, 2024, to tell us about his work and its place in the future of green building. Peter has two web pages, and some wonderful videos have been made about his work. He recently completed his model masonry house, which is now available to rent through VRBO and Airbnb. Peter also holds several patents.
Peter Roberts’ house in Alfred, New York
He gave a fascinating overview of what he sees as problems and possible solutions to the considerable amount of carbon produced by the construction industry. He told us that cement is one of the most commonly used materials on earth. Second only to water. The construction industry, which amounts to about four trillion dollars worldwide, is conservative and slow to change. However, there are new ways of making cement, using materials other than the traditional limestone and clay that are mined, ground to a fine powder, and then heated at very high temperatures. Peter explained many of the new techniques, including using volcanic material as the ancient Romans did to make constructions that are still standing after two thousand years. I confess that until I listened to Peter, I didn’t know that cement and concrete were two different things, even though we often use them interchangeably in everyday language. Cement is the binding ingredient that is essential in making concrete. There is much information available on all of this. A good starting place might be:
Learning about the work of Geoff Boerne and Peter Roberts gives me hope for a more sustainable future for our planet. Please contact either of them if you would like more information or are interested in helping with their endeavors. Perhaps one day we’ll have zero carbon emission and create concrete boats propelled by wind and hydrogen?
18) Thomas Hübl, Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World, pub 2023 (read Feb-Mar 2024)
17) Deb Chachra: How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World, pub 2023 (read Jan 2024)
16) Edward Struzik, Swamplands: Tundra Beavers, Quaking Bogs, and the Improbable World of Peat, pub 2021 (read Oct 2023)
15) Joy Harjo, Poet Warrior: A Memoir(poet laureate) read ???
14) Sarah Augustine, The Land Is Not Empty, pub 2021 (read Jun 2023)
13) Amitav Ghosh, The Nutmeg’s Curse, pub 2022 (read Mar 2023)
12) E.F. Schumaker, Small Is Beautiful, pub 1973 (read Dec 2022)
11) Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism, pub 2021 (read Oct 22)
10) Imbolo Mbue, How Beautiful We Were, pub 2021 (read Aug 2022)
9) Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass,pub 2013 (June 2022)
8) Kristen Olsen, The Soil Will Save Us, pub 2014 (read Apr/May 2022)
7) Paul Hawken, Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation,pub 2021 (read Feb/Mar 2022)
6) Lydia Millet, A Children’s Bible, pub 2020—a novel (read Jan 2022)
5) asknature.org website —created by Janine Benyus, Biomimicry Institute (studied Oct 2021)
4) Kate Haworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, pub 2017 (read Jul/Aug 2021)
3) Arlie Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, pub 2016 (read June 2021)
2) Shalanda H. Baker’s Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Guide to the Energy Transition,pub 2021 (read Mar-Apr 2021)
1) Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K Wilkerson (eds), All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, pub 2020 (read Jan 2021)
Also, we’ve reviewed some articles and digital resources, including:
Jeremy Lent—Patterns of Meaning (Mar 2022) blog piece on climate change and capitalism NMHealthySoil.org New York Times article on chicken Kiss the Ground (video)
Despite my efforts to be creative in promoting the book, I have been discontented these past months with the modest sales of We Ran Away to Sea. I recently contracted someone in Poland to analyze my efforts with Amazon ads, upon which I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time and money with mediocre results. I enjoy the creative aspects of promotion, but not the nitty-gritty details or keeping track.
This morning, a serendipitous detour led to some unexpected pleasures as I reflected upon “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by our sun of York,” the brilliant opening lines of Shakespeare’s Richard III. The link below provides an excellent analysis of the entire passage and concludes with a fabulous video of Laurence Olivier delivering the soliloquy.
My Polish mentor suggested that the blurb which I revised several times with the dubious “help” of ChatGPT was more a synopsis than an invitation to read the book. So, I tackled revising the blurb, and I invite your suggestions and comments. I uploaded the revised blurb for both the ebook and the paperback onto Amazon last night, but I’m not satisfied with either. This morning, I wrote the following shortened version with no use of AI.
So, channeling Shakespeare again, Ladies and Gentlemen, please “lend me your ears” (Julius Caesar) and your advice.
(1) Revision March 22 (morning)
Frustrated and unhappy with their comfortable lives in mid-America, Kent and Pam sell the family home and all their possessions and run away to live on a sailboat. With no experience of the sea or sailing, they fly to England with their children in search of an affordable boat. Their first sail is across the Atlantic. In the days before GPS, they rely on celestial navigation to get them to the Caribbean. Are they crazy, brave, foolish, or all three? Would you or wouldn’t you do what they did? Told in two voices from different perspectives, Pam and Kent’s accounts of their lives at sea and at home will give you much to think about.
Run away with Pam and Kent and explore the unknown with them and within yourself.
Or should the opening (continuing the Shakespeare allusion) be: “Discontented with their comfortable lives…”?
(2) Current Kindle version (as of March 22)
Would you voluntarily give up your secure, comfortable life for the unknown?
When Pam and Kent make the audacious decision to sell their house and everything in it and embrace life at sea, they envision a harmonious existence on their sailboat, filled with adventure and togetherness. However, their dreams shatter early on when Pam and the children abandon Kent and their boat in Europe, leaving him disheartened and adrift. Undeterred, he embarks on a solitary journey through the equinoctial gales of the Bay of Biscay, accompanied by a hired crew. Weeks later, Pam has a change of heart and joins him with their ten-year-old son in the Canary Islands for the Atlantic crossing. Using celestial navigation in the days before GPS, they arrive in Antigua as planned. But little do they know that the challenges of their chosen new life are just beginning.
Pam’s vivid letters and Kent’s heartfelt stories document the grand experiment of their years at sea, their risky overland travels, and the struggles that threaten to pull them apart but bring them closer together. The book contains maps, photos, a timeline, and a glossary.
(3) Current Amazon paperback version (as of March 22)
Would you voluntarily relinquish your comfortable life and worldly goods and set out for the unknown?
When Pam and Kent decide to sell their house and embrace a life at sea, they envision a harmonious existence on their sailboat, filled with adventure and togetherness. However, their dreams shatter when Pam and the children abandon Kent and their boat in Europe, leaving him disheartened and adrift. Undeterred, he embarks on a solitary journey through the equinoctial gales of the Bay of Biscay, accompanied by a hired crew. Weeks later, Pam has a change of heart and she and ten-year-old Andy join him in the Canary Islands for the Atlantic crossing. Using celestial navigation in those days before GPS, they reach the Caribbean. Yet, their challenges are just beginning.
Although Kent yearns to sail through the Panama Canal and explore the vast Pacific, Pam harbors deep-seated fears, and fourteen-year-old Jake, who has reluctantly joined them in the Virgin Islands, craves the familiarity of friends back home. Despite memorable family adventures, Kent reluctantly relinquishes his cherished dream.
Nearly a decade later, Pam and Kent sell their home and possessions again, this time venturing through the Great Lakes into the North Atlantic, through the Bahamas to the Caribbean. For over six years, they travel to offbeat destinations and undertake daring overland journeys through Central America, Venezuela, and Colombia—a country then known for its perilous reputation. Kent remains steadfast in his desire to traverse the Panama Canal and sail the Pacific, but equipment failures, storms, illness, financial worries, and family complications often interrupt their idyllic moments.
Will Pam succumb to her fears, or will Kent embark on his grand voyage alone? Share their journey and the difficult, sometimes heart-wrenching decisions involved in living at sea.
So that’s it! Which of these versions or variations of them would entice you to read the book? What would Shakespeare write? Comments?
Linnea and Kent adventuring in Egypt
And experiencing ancient and modern GreeceAmazon Sales
Overlooking the River Nile from the Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan
Kent reading A Conrad Argosy. Doubleday, 1942. woodcuts by Hans Alexander Mueller
Jacana Press 
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