Changing Course: a Woman's Guide to Choosing the Cruising Life

"[A] well-researched, gracious and truthful account." --Georgian Bay Today

When her husband proposed living on a boat full-time, Debra Cantrell wondered what other women in her position had done and began a five-year study to find out what choices they had made and how it had all worked out. The result is Changing Course, a guidebook for navigating this odyssey. No matter what the outcome, each woman was strengthened by the experience.

In an era when "downshifting" is common and people are considering the benefits of simplified living, Changing Course is both timely and practical.

Debra Cantrell is an adult educator working with the native peoples of Canada--helping them develop self-government and social institutions. A large part of her job is facilitating workshops; she also trains counselors to deal with social problems such as alcoholism and child abuse. Her husband first started talking about longterm cruising in 1987, and they chartered in the Caribbean in 1987, 1991, and 1993. They bought their boat while on charter in 1993, and have since been easing into the cruising life with two-month cruises whenever possible. They made their first major offshore passage (U.S. Virgins to the Chesapeake) in 1997. Meanwhile, in her doctoral program in Adult Education, Cantrell wrote her dissertation on women embracing the cruising lifestyle. Through the internet and sailing magazines, she met and interviewed 107 women, following some 80 of them over a five-year period of their lives. Cantrell sees a conjunction between her professional work and her interest in cruising women--in both areas she has focused on holistic wellness, health and happiness achieved through challenge and change.HOMETOWN: Collingwood, Ontario