Dick’s fast-paced Manning Up In Alaska is a riveting, good read and an entertaining adventure book. At times we laugh; at other times we hold our breath. Regardless of whether we’re sailors or landlubbers, he holds our wide-eyed attention with this action-packed tale as we sail with him and his wife up the coast from Mexico to Alaska aboard his 47-foot sailboat, Last Resort.
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The amazing truth is that lifelong sailor and hard-driving entrepreneur Dick Drechsler didn’t expect to live, much less cruise 2600 miles of ocean. After neck and throat cancer treatment confined him to taking nourishment from a feeding tube, he lost his energy, humor and will to survive. He was forced to retire; he was unable to travel. Worst of all, he was no longer able to enjoy his passion for sailing.
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This book is about how, despite these very long odds, he refused to give up. His story of regaining partial use of his throat; pursuing a lifelong dream to cruise in a sailboat and discovering a new, exciting avocation is a page-turner in every regard. And, in the end, Dick came to dedicate his life and this book to helping other cancer survivors enjoy life and even thrive. For their efforts, Dick and Sharon received the Bluewater Cruising Association Coastal Award and have been inducted into the Catalina Offshore Cruisers Hall of Fame. Dick is passionate about helping other cancer sufferers and has formed a charitable foundation, Sail Through Cancer Foundation, which is dedicated to providing respite and relief in the form of a day on the water to enrich the human experience.
Here is an excerpt from Manning Up In Alaska
With good wind and favorable current, we made it to our next stop, Sandborn Canal, in record time. On the way we saw our first glacier, Leconte Glacier, albeit from a distance, but it was spectacular and we were awed to see a glacier first hand. We also saw 10 humpback whales during this trip, two that breached, the first time we’d seen that since arriving in Alaska. It was a day of discovery. The cruising guide said we might encounter icebergs from here on, but we didn’t see any that day. Sandborn Canal is deep inside Houghton Bay, but looked nice enough to warrant the 10 miles we’d gone out of our way to get there and back. It was a good anchorage and since it was full of crab pots, we thought we’d give it a try too. We spent a quiet night. The crab pot came up empty the next morning. The place was either fished out or we’d picked a bad spot, trying too hard to stay well clear of all the other pots that were already there. We’d later come to learn something else about Sandborn Canal that we wouldn’t soon forget. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE EXCERPT
Sharon has recently been hired as the boating reporter -- “Yacht Travel Examiner” -- for a growing online news source. She will be writing brief articles about yachting, travel and the resort industry. If you have any newsworthy items of general interest, please forward them to Sharon and she'll do her best to include them. Sharon will be writing her column three or four times a week. She gets paid on a per-view basis, so please feel free to pay visits to her page often, or even make it your browser’s Home Page: http://www.examiner.com/x-2424-Yacht-Travel-Examiner
For some, travel is a passion; for Sharon and Dick Drechsler, it is also everyday life. From their desks on-board their Catalina 470 sailboat, Last Resort, they describe their world; they challenge others to realize their own dreams and occasionally, they give us a chuckle along the way.
Dick draws from his experience as a sailor and cancer-survivor to write an inspirational non-fiction book, Manning-up in Alaska, describing how he moved from life as a cancer victim to become a recognized world-class cruiser. Sharon writes freelance travel articles, which have appeared in the Arizona Republic, Mainsheet magazine, Currents newsletter and The Mariner magazine.
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With good wind and favorable current, we made it to our next stop, Sandborn Canal, in record time. On the way we saw our first glacier, Leconte Glacier, albeit from a distance, but it was spectacular and we were awed to see a glacier first hand. We also saw 10 humpback whales during this trip, two that breached, the first time we’d seen that since arriving in Alaska. It was a day of discovery. The cruising guide said we might encounter icebergs from here on, but we didn’t see any that day. Sandborn Canal is deep inside Houghton Bay, but looked nice enough to warrant the 10 miles we’d gone out of our way to get there and back. It was a good anchorage and since it was full of crab pots, we thought we’d give it a try too. We spent a quiet night. The crab pot came up empty the next morning. The place was either fished out or we’d picked a bad spot, trying too hard to stay well clear of all the other pots that were already there. We’d later come to l
For some, travel is a passion; for Sharon and Dick Drechsler, it is also everyday life. From their desks on-board their Catalina 470 sailboat, Last Resort, they describe their world; they challenge others to realize their own dreams and occasionally, they give us a chuckle along the way.
Dick draws from his experience as a sailor and cancer-survivor to write an inspirational non-fiction book, Manning-up in Alaska, describing how he moved from life as a cancer victim to become a recognized world-class cruiser. Sharon writes freelance travel articles, which have appeared in the Arizona Republic, Mainsheet magazine, Currents newsletter and The Mariner magazine.
