Overview

Imagine swimming, surrounded by hundreds of giant Manta Rays in the Sea of Cortez, or riding the tail of a hurricane towards Hawaii while a second storm threatens to overtake your boat from behind. The Voyage of the Maiatla with the Naked Canadian, candidly chronicles the true life adventures of a family of four that set forth on a 52 foot sailboat to circumnavigate the world. The life-long dream of the head of the household seizes the family's imagination and together they sail off on a voyage of discovery and often humorous misadventure, allowing the reader to experience what it is truly like on a daily basis to live the life of a 'Sea Gypsy' with a pair of precocious children and an initially apprehensive spouse as crew. The book covers the first year of the voyage, traversing the coast from Canada to Mexico; including being anchored in San Francisco during the assault on the World Trade Center -- experiencing the Golden Gate City gripped in fear, as well as tales of scuba diving the 'Great White Shark' infested waters of the Farallon Islands off the coast of California. Life on the water includes cruiser's music festivals, exploring tropical desert islands, and a road trip through the Baja desert, which entails staring down the barrel of a loaded machinegun on more than one occasion. Despite our apparent carefree existence, the tragic destruction of several vessels and the loss of some friends soberly remind us of the potentially dangerous life we were leading upon the sea. The other crazy cruisers that we meet along the way; the rich and famous, the poets, paupers and musicians whose own stories and lust for life, often bordering on the bizarre, unexpectedly inject spice and color into our lives as we wander under sail.

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9781456455590

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About the Author The author is a storyteller with the heart of an adventurer; he has the ability to infect others with his zeal for life and his love of the sea. Andrew Gunson grew up in and around boats on the Great Lakes and always dreamed of following the paths of such intrepid sailors as Joshua Slocum, Tristan Jones and Eric and Susan Hiscock. A Canadian National sailing champion at fourteen, he raced aboard some of the fastest yachts then afloat, competing against the very best at the World Championship level. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the West Coast of Canada and discovered a completely new world of sailing; leaving the hi-tech racing yachts behind, he began to follow his dream of becoming a 'cruiser'. Together with his father, he purchased his first cruising sailboat, a Columbia 36' and never looked back. Although a fourth generation mason, Andrew's adventurous spirit led him to attended The College of Oceaneering in Wilmington, California. By age twenty-one, he was a Commercial Bell Diver working on oil-drilling ships in the Beaufort Sea, eventually becoming a co-pilot in the submersible program aboard a Norwegian drill ship working beneath the frigid waters of the Davis Strait, off the coast of Labrador. Before his thirtieth birthday, he retired from commercial diving to focus on raising his young family. With his wife Janet, they purchased and operated a convenience store in Vernon, BC. After selling the business, Andrew obtained his securities license and became a personal financial analyst and small business tax consultant. Andrew's love affair with the sea endured. He continued to dream, just waiting for his own chance to sail off. After surviving a brush with deadly skin cancer, a pair of automobile accidents, one of which almost claimed Andrew's life, not to mention being accidentally shot while bear hunting, the couple decided it was time to stop dreaming and start planning their escape before it was too late. Hence, the saga of the sailing vessel Maiatla II and the Naked Canadian began.

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