A Gypsy Life: Adventures of Clare and Edward Allcard Aboard Their Yacht Johanne

One picnic and the adventure of a lifetime begins. Clare Allcard meets her sailor life partner when she randomly picks up a discarded paper and reads an article about Edward Allcard, a world sailor who happened to be on a layover in England. She writes a letter in response to the article and their journey together begins. Oh, did I mention that she was in a sanitarium at the time? This a wonderful sailing memoir of the halcyon cruising days of the early 1970s before the advent of mass production fiberglass boats. The Caribbean is still a sleepy place with bays uncrowded by moorings and where dreamers, vagabonds and adventurers had a little bit more economic and regulatory breathing room, a world now long gone. Edward acquires a grand old Danish trading ketch with good bones and they set about refitting her on a shoestring budget. Mishaps ensue but they are an industrious pair and get the boat ship shape, raise a daughter, sail across the Atlantic, to England, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy… en route to their home in the Seychelles. This is a classic sailing memoir, a great read that sheds light on the grit and character of sailors at the time, not only coping with radically minimal comforts—but truly fulfilled and living in the present. It’s a look back on a world quite changed and a window on an inspiring life