Three Years in a Twelve-Foot Boat - Softcover

Stephen G. Ladd

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966933737 ISBN 13: 9780966933734

Publisher: Seekers Press, 2000

Synopsis

This is the true narrative of a middle-aged poet who rows and sails a featherweight wooden boat through nineteen countries - 15,000 miles - to relive his youth and savor adventure. While courting disaster in some of the Western Hemisphere's remotest corners, he records nature, cultures, and his own emotional processes.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Bent on discovery, Ladd ranges from Montana to a harrowing sail along the pirate-ridden coast of Panama and Colombia, across the Andes, down a 600-mile river by night to avoid guerrillas, to the Antilles and the Caribbean. Robbed, capsized, arrested and befriended, he sails and rows through a tumult of uncharted adventures.

The cast of characters: Dieter, mad ex-Nazi on a desert island; Hans, the smuggler who disappears at sea; castaways, prostitutes, and fortune seekers.

Stow away with a poetic storyteller on a stormy, soulful voyage through nineteen countries, on the razor's edge between freedom and fear, loneliness and love.

About the Author:

Stephen G. Ladd was born in Bremerton, Washington in 1953. As a child he was happy to sit in a corner reading books of history or geography. After high school he traveled through Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, passing a traumatic month in a Moroccan prison. He navigated the emotional crisis of his youth alone, in foreign cultures. Upon his return, Steve studied urban planning, obtaining degrees from Western Washington and Harvard Universities. From 1976 to 1990 he worked for various cities, writing land use plans and environmental regulations. He also advanced his poetry and music, and forestalled his wanderlust by wilderness skiing. 1987 found Steve still single, hardy, and non-materialistic, so he spent three years designing and building the 12-foot Squeak; and three more years sailing her through nineteen countries. Steve returned home in 1993. He finished his manuscript and once again plans for cities. Meanwhile his wanderlust slowly wells anew.

About this edition

• Publisher: Seekers Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0966933737
• ISBN 13: 9780966933734
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 390