The Thoreau Approach

I know someone who spent two years, two months and two days staring at the water, living in a space 150ft square, and paying keen attention to the weather. This sounds like a happy circumnavigation, and in a sense it was, because the person I’m referring to is Henry David Thoreau, whose book Walden was very much about a trip across new horizons while living close to nature. In his own words: “I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.” Walden’s subtitle is “Life in the Woods,” but it could just as easily have been “Independent Passage” or “Wind, Weather and Self.”

Another quote: “I could watch the motions of a sail forever, they are so rich and full of meaning.” That’s not Liz Clark or Dennis Conner. It’s our own Henry David Thoreau, and it’s why we can celebrate Thoreau as a model for sailors who love the water, adopt simplicity and advocate for nature.

Thoreau says get out and go, and I hear his admonition when my life’s