In the wooden box where I keep letters and a few small mementos of 10 years aboard Tosca, there’s a hand carved bottle stopper that Larry and Lin Pardey gave to me 20 years ago. Made of walnut and cork, it looks like a raindrop that naturally sprung from a tree.
My partner, Theresa and I were walking along Bowen’s Wharf in Newport, RI, where I’d come to interview for a full-time job at Cruising World, when we spied a familiar boat, Taleisin. We’d barely exchanged introductions when Lin and Larry invited us to lunch.
To a couple of young wooden-boat sailors who’d been guided for years by the famous cruising couple’s “go simple, go small, go now,” philosophy it was like being invited to tea with the Queen. To this day, I believe that chance meeting was what led me to this spot today.
I can’t remember the words, or which of them said it, but their message was something like this: “If you’re going to settle down, working for a sailing magazine isn’t a pretty good place to land.” What they didn’t tell us was that they were on the verge of hatching a plan to sail westabout sail around the Horn.
Many years later, on assignment for PS, we met again at the Wooden Boat Show, in Port Townsend, Washington where the couple were giving a series of talks. Larry walked slowly, supported by Lin. Parkinsons disease was setting in.
We sat down for lunch once again, on a beautiful Port Townsend afternoon, with a who’s who among ocean sailors, Ralph Naranjo, Steven Callahan, Brion Toss, Carol Hasse, and Lin and Larry. I reminded Larry how’d he’d had a hand in the two biggest choices in my life—to go to sea and to return—and he laughed.
“I hope you made the right choice.”
Larry died in New Zealand on July 27, but the gifts that he and Lin gave to the cruising community—the articles, the videos, the books, the stories—will endure for years to come.
What delights me most about their work is the life wisdom they weave between the practical advice. One bit in particular rings true with me: As long as you are following your dream, you will never make the wrong choice.
