Gerry pays the price of friendship

What a price Gerry Adamson has had to pay for her friendship with this singlehanded Cape Horner. As she went into hospital this week, I wrote about her enormous help for the project to sail around the world in a home-made schooner, Spirit of Pentax.

The earlier article outlined how she and husband Pat went out of their way to ensure that Pentax and this fellow were as ready for the voyage as possible.

Their help was enormous and showed an extraordinarily generous nature.

I survived

The voyage happened, the yacht’s sailor survived, and soon the book of the voyage, Loner (Hodder and Stoughton), was written.

The adventure and the oceans captured my heart.

I abandoned life as a Fleet Street journalist, studied at Nautical College, and became a DoT commercial yachtmaster.

You’ll imagine, I expect, the enormous debt of gratitude I owed the Adamsons. The repayment, if I can term it that way, was delivered by an utterly corrupt government department now disbanded.

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventuring book, Sailing to Purgatory, at
http://sailingtopurgatory.com/index.php/feeds/497-gerry-pays-the-price-of-friendship