More than 40 years ago, two friends in Seattle were dreading the thought of leaving college and entering the Rat Race. One dreary afternoon at the University of Washington, they cooked up a plan to drop out of school and sail around the world.The idea turned out to be one of those rare dreams that is actually realized. It was no easy task, however. It took six years, dozens of crew members and about 30,000 "blue water miles" of thrills and perils on the open sea, all aboard a 50-foot wooden schooner, appropriately christened the Lusty I.The resulting tale is a sort of postmodern version of Homer's Odyssey. Instead of journeying homeward and unintentionally getting seduced by women and caught up in adventures, the men and women aboard the Lusty I chose to flee the safety of home with the hopes of finding seduction and adventure abroad. And they found it.They weathered dangerous storms in a leaking boat, fell in love, got shot at, got shooed away from island resorts by mafia bodyguards, found buried treasure, ate exotic meals, scaled volcanoes, witnessed the mysterious "green flash," and visited a multitude of fascinating cultures and tropical Islands of unsurpassed beauty.Beyond the tales of adventure and debauchery, the book also offers us a glimpse at a world much different from the one around us today. It was a post-war, post-colonial world, with freshman governments guiding newly-independent countries into periods of rapid development. Ports of call included the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand, the New Hebrides, the Solomons and Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, Ceylon, Seychelles, Mombasa, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, Brazil, Trinidad, and dozens of islands in the Caribbean.Perhaps by revisiting this journey, one will be better able to understand the world we live in now, but whether for edification or just sheer fun, come along and enjoy this sailing saga with the author and the many friends of the schooner, Lusty I.
About the Author:Mike Williams grew up in the Seattle area and at the age of twenty dropped out of school and journeyed to New York and subsequently Europe. He returned two years later to finish University, but not being very career-minded or a particularly good student, when the opportunity to go sailing came along he jumped at the chance. As he said, "It just felt like the right thing to do." After the years circumnavigating, Mike was never really able to settle back into a day job and a conventional life style. As a result, a good part of the last thirty or so years has been spent living overseas, and most of that time has been in Thailand. While the expat life suits him well, a few months every year are spent back in the Pacific Northwest at the old log cabin on Whidbey Island he calls his summer home.