The Cruise of the Curlew
Dear [Friend]*
We completed our year-long voyage around the eastern States on July 24th and found, much to our amazement, after twelve months of living like sardines in a space about the size of an average-sized bathroom, that we were all still speaking to one another. To have experienced such ultra-togetherness for so long and to have emerged from the experience with sanity if not serenity intact is, we believe, an achievement far more worthy of note than a mere single-handed passage across the Atlantic Ocean in a small boat. For this, we have given each other a small pat on the back.
The 8,000-mile trip was accomplished with relatively few crises and, until we were within 275 miles of home port, without the loss of a single member of the ship’s company (although there were a few near mutinies). But at Montezuma, N. Y., on the Erie Barge Canal, Fred, our cat, disappeared. We stayed over all the next day searching for her (she’s an altered female despite her name), but to no avail. We then offered a reward to anyone who found her and, with heavy hearts, pushed on.
This loss hit Virginia the hardest because Fred was her special pet, but it hit our skipper very hard, too, as losing a member of the crew is not exactly in the highest traditions of the sea. So we were a most melancholy group when Curlew got back to her moorings at the Mentor Harbor Yachting Club. But lo! We hadn’t been home more than two days when we got a momentous telephone call — Fred had been found.
Douglas and Robert sped back to Montezuma by car to pay the reward and bring Fred back to the bosom of her elated family. She has remained close to home ever since and the captain, relieved of guilt feelings, has become his old self again.
The skipper (contrary to his experience in Tinkerbelle) managed to get through the year of living afloat without falling overboard, and so did Robin. But Virginia, Douglas, and Chrissy each went over the side once and Fred went over several times (fortunately only when Curlew was at a dock). We never actually saw Fred take a dive; we only knew she’d done so when she returned to the cabin dripping.
Now Robert, assisted by Virginia and the two teenagers, is hard at work on a book about the voyage. It will be published in late 1969 or early 1970 by Harper and Row. The tentative title is “The Cruise of the Curlew“.
Intermittently, Robert is also doing some lecturing, but he and Virginia have already started to dream about the next trip: to Europe or the South Seas or Australia or even around the world. Any suggestions?
If we do take another trip we will certainly share its fun and excitement with you, at least in book form if not in a more personal way. Right now, however, we all join together to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. God bless.
Robert Virginia Robin Doug
* (This is a transcription of the Manry’s 1968 holiday letter sent to friends and family. Minor adjustments to the formatting have been made. From the archives of the Robert Manry Project.)
