Gypsy Wind Speaks: Life Lessons from a Sailboat

In the summer of 2005, Captain Coy Theobalt decided to make a dream come true. One held in his heart for over forty years. He closed up shop and moved to the United States Virgin Islands and began an adventure that eventually found its way onto these pages. This true story is about one man simply attempting to live his dream. Gypsy Wind Speaks, Life lessons from a sailboat is a compilation of short stories and poems about his adventures and misadventures on the Caribbean Sea. Everything from the insanity of trying to start a business in a foreign country to rats on his sailboat will keep you both entertained and challenged. The chapter on running aground will tear your heart out. The book is ultimately about all the lessons his beloved boat, Gypsy Wind, taught him. Each Life Lesson is one that can be applied both on and off the water of life. His hope is that these lessons with inspire your heart, tickle your funny bone, challenge your soul, and prod you to live your own dreams.

Coy’s love for the water and sailing began in the freshwater lakes around his hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas. From a professional standpoint, he began his career as a therapist after finishing graduate school in Denver, Colorado. He maintained a private practice for seventeen years as well as managing an inpatient men’s program at a treatment facility in Tucson, Arizona. Over the forty years of his work career at one time or another, he was a carpenter, landscaper, house painter, roofer, preacher, teacher, trainer, mentor, fishing guide, father, grandfather, and of course a boat captain. In 2003 he cofounded a nonprofit organization for men battling cancer. They provided three-day all-expense paid fly-fishing trips to men with any stage and type of cancer. In 1998 he began to rekindle his love of sailing and in 2005, just after turning fifty, he received his captain’s license and started a charter sailing business in the US Virgin Islands. For four seasons he sailed the turquoise water of the Caribbean Sea taking folks on new adventures. Coy has always held a wandering spirit as an attribute and can be found living the RV dream these days with his first mate, Charlotte, and their dog Jojo in their land yacht, “Andiamo 3.” When not fly fishing, bird watching, or hiking, they are on their latest sailboat, Reef Song, plying the waters of the Caribbean Sea, looking for another adventure. Gypsy Wind Speaks is Coy’s first book.