Sailing Faith: The Long

Way Home

The Gregg A Granger

Family Adventure

Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home

By Gregg A Granger

We return in May 2008 after four and a half years aboard the Sailing Vessel Faith, circumnavigating the world. Until Faith, our sailing experience was limited to a sixteen foot Hobie Cat on an inland lake in Michigan. Like anything else, it's a matter of figuring it out.

We visit thirty-eight countries.

As we review our itinerary before our voyage with friends and relatives, a number of people say, “You’re going to a lot of places where they don’t value human life like we do.” There's nothing wrong with that statement from our own perspective before we're underway, after all, it's an American truism. Unfortunately, it's utter nonsense when speaking of the places we visit on Faith. Certainly, there's a small minority everywhere that doesn't value human life, whether that place is Tel Aviv, Aden, Makassar or Oklahoma City. We've been to all of these, and are yet to meet them.

It's a funny world, and Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home paints it hilarious at times and heart breaking at others, as we move through an enchanting view of the world we're shielded from here in the United States. It begins with a question of my own values , driven by the accumulation and disposal of stuff, and my knowledge that there is so much more I can, as a father, give to my children.

Often, it seems that books on this subject lean toward the sensational: the pirates, the storms, and people unfriendly to us because of our religion or nationality, and some of these stories achieve mythical proportions. Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home addresses these harrowing stories from our experience, and concludes that there isn't much in the international yacht cruising life to be harrowed by. Of course there are storms; there are also broken bones, and disease - malaria in our instance - but there is nowhere that we went where people are anything but friendly, helpful, and pleased that we are there to visit. I believe that venomous commentary in the mainstream media serve to keep American citizens from realizing the beauty of the created world and the people we share it with.

Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home captures the world of others and otherness, focusing especially on our reactions, not always admirable, to them. It's a story of faith in God, love for each other and the friends we meet, and of personal and family growth in a broken world.

The world is not a scary place.

The current manuscript of Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home is approximately 120,000 words, 365 pages, and includes 6 maps. The genre is Family Adventure, Memoir, Multicultural, International Travel, and Sailing; a narrower focus brings it to Family Multicultural Adventure. Photographs are available.