There Be No Dragons: How to Cross a Big Ocean in a Small Sailboat [Paperback]

..a delightful blend of information and stories, with emphasis on the human aspect of sailing. Witty, irreverent, and inspirational with as much 'why to' as 'how to'..funny, raucous, insightful, anarchistic, entertaining, instructional; seamanship with a differenceSailors dream of travels to foreign and intriguing ports, but are afraid to go because of imagined fears. But in fact it is more dangerous to sail alongshore than across an ocean. In this witty, irreverent and challenging book, Palley explains why.The title of this book came from Portugese charts of the earliest voyages of discovery on which terra incognita bore the legend beyond here there be dragons. The author wishes to convince timid sailors that they can go places off shore, where there are no dragons beyond the far horizons. It is designed to address the basic problems, imagined and real, that keep sailors from sea. It creates a realistic framework of skills and attitudes into which any sailor, skilled or unskilled, experienced or tyro, young or ancient, man or woman, may realize the dream of passaging a big ocean in a 30- to 40-foot boat....We dread the unknown only because it is unknown. The hardest thing is getting your mind made up to just go do it.