Jenny's Journey: The Reality of Living the Dream
One of my first childhood memories is set on the beach of the New Jersey shore.  I was six.  I had let a helium balloon go flying and watched as it went out to sea.  I asked Mom where it would go. She said Europe if it stayed in the air long enough and I stared in wonder. I wondered what the journey would be like and what Europe was.  It's been a long time since then, and while I've been to Europe several times, that balloon is still pulling me out to sea.   As I grew older, my spirit of adventure pulled me toward sailboats.  I read every book that existed on voyaging.  My heroes were Magellan, Cook, Darwin, Chichester, Larry and Lynn Pardee, Sterling Hayden, Joe Richards and so many others.  I had a family by the time I graduated from College and started a career with IBM.  Thoughts of cruising the world were put in the deep freeze.  I did manage to buy a sailboat along the way.  It was a Herreshoff Eagle named Harmony, a reflection of Princess, a gaff rigged centerboard sloop.  She was perfect for the Chesapeake Bay and I took my family for day sails with an occasional overnight thrown in.  The dream remained alive, but still on submerged.  Work and family life demanded my full attention and the kids found sailing boring.  Decades passed.  Midlife married a second time, I retired from a very successful professional career in information technology in 2007 and began a new life at sea.  Jenny, a Nordhavn 46, took me away.