The author grew up sailing during summers in Maine which instilled in him an abiding passion and curiosity about sailing and the natural world. After years of periodic offshore racing and weekend sailing on the Chesapeake Bay with family and friends, he and his wife, Gisela, together restore a Whitby 42 ketch and, after a shakedown cruise to the Bahamas, commit to first tentative nautical miles south from Philadelphia, over to Bermuda, down to the Caribbean and toward the Pacific Ocean. This chronicle is a narrative log of an eventual 15 year journey on what became a grand circumnavigation that unfolded step by step in a combination of careful planning and circumstance. The book is a highly personal tale of that voyage, with stories and technical information gathered together under one cover, to share with friends, family and those interested in an adventurous life on the high seas.