42APRIL 2015crossing the Atlantic is little more than a
fairytale. It certainly was for us. But ours is an
“if we can do it, you can too” story of a hus-
band and wife who took time off work to sail
their production sailboat from the Mediterra-
nean back to the Western Hemisphere. We had
such an amazing adventure we can only encour-
age others to make their dream a reality, too.
I’m writing this in mid-December in
Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, where we’ve just arrived
along with 48 other sailboats participating in
the ARC+ rally, sailing from Gran Canaria to
St. Lucia via the Cape Verde Islands. But our
story actually ends with the ARC rather than
starting there...My wife, Brenda, and I had enjoyed
Caribbean sailing for many years. We
purchased a boat in the Sunsail fleet so we
could explore farther afield and joined a flotilla
in Greece’s Ionian islands in 2000. We decided
then and there that we would come back
someday on our own boat so we could truly
cruise on our own schedule.
In 2010, after our kids were out of college,
we purchased a 2006 Bavaria 39 in the BVI
from friends we knew from our local sailing
grounds, Lewis and Clark Lake, a reservoir on
the Missouri River. We renamed her Asylum
and spent the next few winters sailing up and
down the Windward and Leeward Islands.Becuase of our limited experience, we de-
cided our first Atlantic crossing should be the
“milk run,” from east to west. Our plan was
to sail up the East Coast, spend a summer on
the Chesapeake, ship the boat to the Mediter-
ranean, cruise Greece and the rest of the Med
for two summers and bring the boat back to
where we started—the BVI—via the ARC.THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
In March 2012 Brenda and I sailed from St.
Lucia to Puerto Rico, the Turks and Caicos,
the Bahamas, and then jumped to Fort Pierce
in Florida. From there we sailed offshore to
Deltaville, Maryland, and spent the summerFor many lake sailors and coastal cruisers,
After the crossing, new friends
from the ARC+ come onboard
for an introduction to Caribbean
“Painkiller” drinks in St. Lucia