This updated guide is considered the "Bible" by many cruising yachtsmen traveling between Florida and Venezuela. Includes many sketchcharts and GPS coordinates, plus a wealth of information for the sailor who would rather take it slow and easy entroute to paradise.
Orphaned by World War II, Van Sant worked his way through childhood at dozens of crazy jobs. He learned to sail early by borrowing sailing skiffs from beach lifeguards. After university he got a job and a sailboat with a plan that, when the sailboats got big enough, he'd get out of the rat race and go sailing to simpler places for a simpler life.
He spent four decades of cruising, working, writing and speaking in countries of Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, picking up six languages along the way, four of which he used well enough to make a living on local economies. By 1979 he had settled into cruising the myriad islands between Florida and South America.
Having long ago "copped out" or "gone Galt", Van Sant no longer copes as a tiny cog in the big machines of the so-called developed countries. He got used to living freely, without every step insured or hobbled by cat's cradles of regulations, government programs, monthly bills and nettling bosses. He lives without ever-present signs of "NO smoking", "NO fishinig", "No swimming, loitering, littering, entry, passing, parking in the park -- NO!".
The younger, freer America where he grew up haunts visits home, where he finds himself longing to escape to the America of his youth. He always did the next best thing and sailed away again. If you want to escape, he can tell you how. You can read some of his and others' adventures in world cruising in Margarita Cat.
Van Sant has, alas, sold his last boat and lives ashore with his wife Rosa in their home, Kembali ke Tanah, high over the sea in the Dominican Republic. See Kembali at www.LuperonCruising.com.
