These are the tales of two empty nesters pursuing the dream of extended cruising on a 51 foot sailboat.

          Sailing for us started in Albert Lea, Minnesota on Fountain Lake in the 1950s. It escalated in the 1970s on Lake Pepin on the Mississippi River as an effort to halt Jeff's battle as a non-recovering workaholic. To date, that effort has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams! At first we had the grandiose dream to just sail from the end of the dock in San Diego to the South Pacific, and then on through the Mediterranean, the Panama Canal, and home, sort of, to Phoenix. Now, as we look forward to a one year leave of absence from practicing law, we have scaled back our plans. We think we will try one day at a time. Our plan is not without precedent:

          Be the current against us, what matters it? Be it in our favour, we are carried hence, to what place or for what purpose? Our plan of the voyage is so insignificant that it matters little, maybe, whither we go, for the "grace of a day" is the same! Is it not a recognition of this which makes the old sailor happy, though in the storm; and hopeful even on a plank in mid-ocean? Surely it is this! for the spiritual beauty of the sea, absorbing man's soul, permits of no infidels on its boundless expanse.

- Joshua Slocum, Voyage of the Liberdade