How far would you reach, to reach into your dreams?  How far would your dreams carry you?  How much would your dreams demand of you?  And how much would you give - of your time, of your effort - of your self - to make those dreams come true?

I don't really know, for myself, either.  But I have had the chance to explore some of my dreams ... a little ... and I've discovered that I have a taste for different lands, different cultures, different experiences.  Like most of us, though, I have factors that keep me from "chucking it all" and sailing beyond the sunset ... family, friends, a house full of "stuff".  I'm not ready to abandon my ties, but sometimes I jerk against them.  And every so often, I do cut loose - for a while.

March 2007 was one of those "whiles"; I spent two weeks in Argentina and Uruguay, countries in South America that are almost as far south of the Equator as my home is north of the Equator.  My time in Argentina was minimal, almost perfunctory - enough to have seen a bit of Buenos Aires - but my time in Uruguay was most pleasurably life-changing, because in the resort town of Punta del Este I discovered it was time for me to explore sailing. 

Two years later, I'm ready to start my own "Voyage of Discovery" aboard Bossa Nova - a 26-foot, trailer-borne sailboat that functions as a "funny-shaped travel trailer" on land.

This won't be a particulary spectacular "Voyage of Discovery".  I'm not going to plant the Explorer's Club flag in a place where no one has ever trod before.  It won't be arduous as Lewis & Clark's trek to the Pacific, or long and uncertain like Joshua Slocum's voyage around the world in the Spray, or dangerous and uncertain like Lindbergh's flight to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis.  But I am going outside the boundaries of my accustomed life, just to see what's there.  Isn't that exploring, too? 

Even the "bear (who) went over the mountain, to see what he could see," was going outside the boundaries of his accustomed life.  And even if "all that he could see was the other side of the mountain," he still saw more than if he'd rolled over in his den and gone back to sleep.

But for us - humans - we find more to see in life than a bear would see.  We don't only look outside, we look inside.  We notice not only the mountain, but our own response to the mountain: the challenge of climbing it, the difficulties of its steepness, and the achievement of finally crossing over its ridge.  We learn from the mountain, too.  We learn such things as "what I did well ... what I could have done better ... whether this mountain-climbing business is really for me."  And when we get home - or to our destination - we can share what we learned, what we saw.

My "Voyage of Discovery" will be more on that plane.  I'm going out to see places in the USA that I haven't seen before, and sometimes I'll re-visit places I have seen; but I'm also going out to see them from a different viewpoint, from the deck of my boat.  I'll be "discovering" them for myself, from my own perspective, and this Web site is to share my experiences.  But even more important to me, I'm going to be exploring and learning what it's like to live aboard a small boat, though in such a way that I won't be as dependent on Bossa Nova as Joshua Slocum was on his Spray.

I hope you'll enjoy sharing my Voyage of Discovery, through this website.