About the Author
I started 14 years ago by buying a 15m cruising yacht, Curlew Escape. It was my first yacht. I started as a complete novice. Since then, I have made eleven voyages up the Queensland coast and have become an RYA Yacht Master Offshore and an AMSA-qualified commercial skipper for sailing boats.
My wife Maria is also an avid sailor and has been on board many of these voyages. She has done some lovely watercolour paintings used in the book. Before becoming an Australian citizen, she travelled the world with me in my IT day job. She started sailing in New Zealand, and regularly sailed in the Bay of Plenty, out of Tauranga and Whakatane and then in the Cook Strait out of Wellington. Her most extended trip was an ocean passage from New Zealand to Tonga.
We are joined in our adventures by our lovingly brave Chihuahua, Tonto. My two adult sons, Curtis and Lewis, also sometimes come along on our adventures.
