When we first pulled into Cape Charles, VA – we would not look at his 30′ sailboat twice. FLEETWOOD, a home-built plywood sloop sits in a dock next to our FLO and in her cramped hull camps Jap, an 82 year old Dutch/American circumnavigator. Flo promptly invited him to dinner which led to countless stories of his Pacific adventures, accounts of his lone voyages into the Med and Black Sea – and his two near death shipwrecks.

I took two things away from that memorable evening with Jap. For one, he serves as a great inspiration that “less is often more” and there is no age limit to “seizing every day fully”. Furthermore, and on a more pragmatic note, I reflected on his two shipwrecks. Both times, schedule and fatigue played an instrumental part in creating disaster – the two biggest enemies of solo sailing.

ComeToSea is his colorful blog and his book “SoloMan” is an absorbing read for those armchair bound.