Trade Winds Calling

The following chapters and sailing stories are an amalgamation of some research, of this author’s personal experiences, and embellished by my extrapolated imagination feeding off my life experiences. Where truth ends and imagination takes over is up to the reader to determine. However, this book is mostly fiction. Some of the characters in the stories are real, but under advice I have changed names and made them fit the venue into which they are placed. There is no far-out fantasy here; the fictional occurrences correspond with actual historical events. I have also changed the names of the sailing yachts in the stories, with a couple of exceptions. Most references to places and times are real, but not all. I have utilized ‘coincidence’ as a mechanism for making things happen, but coincidence in real life can and has affected us all. Coincidence is like throwing fairy dust on reality; sometimes something magical occurs.

The principal character in the book, Ed Rogers, replicates many of my own adventurous romantic dreams. Ed’s goal as a happy bachelor, as was mine for many years, was to experience as much of this marvelous world as time, money and fate would allow. Rogers, as my alter ego, had the good fortune to travel, sail and love many wonderful people and exotic places around the globe. Only a few years of his globe trotting and sailing are included in these stories. It is hoped that the sailing portions of the book will acquaint and educate the non-sailing reader (and at the same time not insult the experienced sailor) with various aspects of the day-to-day life aboard a well-founded cruising yacht. To cross an ocean in a small sailing yacht for the first time is a huge leap of faith. It is hoped these stories will explain an adventurer’s attraction to the South Seas, distant lands and peoples that have so richly blessed my life and the history of the South Pacific.

I have been told that there are two love stories here. I prefer to think there are many. I enjoyed the writing of this story, The freedom of being able to write anything I wanted and to create people, places and things rather than sticking to reality is intoxicating. Much like the shores of the world’s major oceans, the boundaries of writing fiction are far apart. Lastly, I would like the reader to keep in mind that most of this story takes place in the time period between 1977 and 1982. Please look back over the past thirty years or so and recognize that many changes have taken place since then, in sailboat technology and Pacific Island tourism. Thank you for sailing and dreaming with me. Enjoy your sail!