About Dana, Kai, and the adventure

Even before we were married in St. John, US Virgin Islands in 2008, we've dreamt of The Adventure fresh in our relationship while in graduate school at the University of Wyoming five years earlier. The idea of The Adventure was born at Boston University as my freshman roommate, Chris Boyle, and I imagined sailing the world in search of excitement and new experiences. While some time has passed, the goal was a topic of conversation whenever we got together in various locales.

When Dana entered the scene, we got a taste of The Adventure by chartering a sailboat for close to a month in the Mediterranean. Several years later, the dream continued with a charter in the Fijian islands, where we were engaged.

Life, however, tends to get in the way of dreams and by 2007, everyone had careers and futures for which to plan.  While the Boyle was ready to pull the trigger for the adventure at that time, we were both in fledgling psychologist jobs and were in no position to leave. Now, six years later, we're ready to take the plunge, but Boyle recently started a new company and cannot take an extended leave.

Sailing is in my blood. I was born in Norway to American parents who were spending a year reconnecting with their Scandinavian heritage. My father Paul spent the later part of his life obsessed with offshore sailing in his small seaworthy boat, Ladre. Dad sailed Ladre by single handed much of the time and attempted to sail from Connecticut to Bermuda on more than one occasion. Thwarted only by gales and the seasickness of a crewmember he brought along for one of the voyages, Dad purchased a larger sailboat for he and Mom’s retirement. However, brain cancer robbed them of that dream. Dad passed away in 2008 just prior to our wedding. Dana and I inherited Ladre, along with my brother Erik, and learned to sail on her.

This spring, we purchased a larger, sturdy, seaworthy, and well-loved sailboat. After sailing Ladre on the Delaware River and up to Erik in New York for several years, we feel ready to face the challenges of such a journey. The new vessel, named Eventyr (Norwegian for Adventure), hearkens back to our Viking roots. It has a full, heavy keel and was built for safety and stability as opposed to speed. When you don’t have deadlines, speed isn’t such a concern.

So this October, without Boyle or our beloved dog Jack (who passed away at 12 in the final planning stages of the Adventuring) we'll cast off our lines at the Philadelphia Marine Center and set sail for points south. The plan is to sail to Florida for a friends Matt and Lauren's wedding in Boca Raton in mid-November and then on through the Caribbean, South and Central America, and then back to Philly and our previous jobs and lives in a year’s time. The goals for the year include seeking out excitement and new experiences, meeting new people and realizing dreams. We'd love to volunteer along the way, where we can. We'd also like to improve our conversational Spanish.

If you're interested in watching me give a 7 minute speech in Toastmasters about the adventure back when it was just a dream earlier this year, check out this video (the first 1:30 is the intro and can be skipped) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhLKrORkrLk

Here is our proposed route:

A more in depth version of our tentative map with anticipated dates of arrivals can be viewed at this link through Scribble Maps.http://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/k0aRrx70n8

Kai