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In 1965, 16-year-old Robin Lee Graham began a solo around-the-world voyage from San Pedro, California, in a 24-foot sloop. Five years and 33,000 miles later, he returned to home port with a wife and daughter and enough extraordinary experiences to fill this bestselling book, Dove.
This is a reissue of the now classic adventure story of a boy's solo sailing voyage around the world.
DOVE nosed into her slip at the Long Beach marina, her sails furled like a bird resting its wings after a storm. I wasn't thinking about the voyage at all. My mind was on Patti. I was yearning to hold her again. She was standing there among the reporters and television cameras, and laughing-her long wheatcolored hair blowing across her face in that familiar way, her body swollen with my child.
As Dove was being tied up, so many newsmen came charging down the floating slip that it threatened to sink and to throw them into the April-chill water. I sat on the cabin roof waiting for the customs officer, and a dozen microphones were thrust into my face. Then the questions came at me like stones.
"What does it feel like to be the youngest sailor to have circled the world single-handed?"
"I haven't given it much thought," I said--and that was true.
"Would you do it again?"
"God no! I've done it once. Why do it again?"
"How did Patti become pregnant?" This from a woman reporter fluttering artificial eyelashes.
I urged her to read a book on birds and bees. She was closer than she knew to a love story that I wasn't yet ready to tell.
"What did you think about when you were alone and a thousand miles from land?"
"Perhaps the things you think about when you're alone," I parried, "but mostly about the next port."
"How far have you traveled since leaving California five years ago?"
"About thirty thousand and six hundred miles," I said.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Take a hot bath."
"Did you do it for a stunt?"
"A stunt! Hell no!"
Patti was making signs to me, tryingto tell me to keep my cool. She knew how short my fuse was when people asked damn-fool questions. But how could I tell these people, all thinking of their copy deadlines, why I had made this voyage?
Couldn't they leave me alone? Couldn't they guess that all I wanted was to be with Patti, to get away from this damned boat, to be among trees again, and in front of a blazing hearth and in a bed that didn't lurch with every wave and wind?
Actually I had seen Patti half an hour earlier. She and her father and my parents had come out in a launch at dawn to meet Dove at the breakwater. Patti had leaned perilously over the launch's rail to give me a breakfast of fresh melon, hot rolls and a bottle of champagne. I had drunk the whole bottle before reaching the marina and my mood was reasonably mellow. The reporters were safe. I even grinned at them. The television cameras zoomed in.
Many have sailed long and dangerous voyages for the sake of personal glory. Others have sailed for personal adventure. I fall into neither group. I have tried to answer honestly when people have asked me what made me do it--what compelled me at the age of sixteen to take a twenty-four-foot sailboat out of San Pedro harbor (it flanks Long Beach) and to tell my family and friends, "I'm going around the world."
Shakespeare, who seems to have had an answer to most questions, had Hamlet say, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." That was an answer that fitted pretty closely.
I'd never heard of Shakespeare and understood nothing about destiny when I went to school at the age of five in California. The classroom was close to a forest of yacht masts, and while other kids crayoned pictures of automobiles, airplanes, flowers or their Uncle Harry wearing big glasses, I drew only pictures of boats--boats with scores of portholes, top-heavy boats, small boats, wind-filled mainsails, mizzens, genoas, jibs and spinnakers. Then, when I was ten and a lot more resentful of homework, I pressured my father into giving me an eight-foot dinghy--beat up but beautiful. We were living then at Morro Bay, one of the more attractive of California's coastal towns. On launching day my father said he would teach me how to sail. He was full of wisdom because the previous night he had been reading a manual titled How to Handle a Small Craft. We got out two hundred yards from the shore and he lectured me on the danger of jibing (page 16 in the manual). Hardly had he lowered his finger than the boat jibed and both of us were thrown into the water.
But how I loved that little boat. Every day when school was over my brother Michael would dash off to the back yard and tinker with his beach buggy, but I would run all the way to the little wooden jetty beyond the reeds near our house. Sailing already meant much more to me than "mucking about in boats," as the neighbors used to call it. It was the chance to escape from blackboards and the smell of disinfectant in the school toilet, from addition and subtraction sums that were never the same as the teacher's answers, from spelling words like "seize" and "fulfill" and from little league baseball. It was the chance to be alone and to be as free for a while as the sea gulls that swung around Morro Rock.
One night when I should have been asleep I could hear my parents talking about me, their voices drifting down the passage from the living room. "I'm worried that he's such a loner," said my mother. "He needs more company. More friends. Perhaps we should ask Stephen or David to join us for the vacation."
A loner? Was I really different? I had friends. But I liked being alone, and a boat gave me the chance of getting away from people.
Anonymous
Posted Sun Mar 24 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I enjoyed the story much. If you dream of sailing you will enjoy this read.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Sep 09 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Dove is the incredible story of Robin Lee Graham’s astonishing sail around the world. When Robin was just 16, he began his solo voyage from southern California in a twenty-four-foot sloop. Robin visits many different cultures along his five-year journey, including Hawaii, several islands in South America, South Africa, and Asian islands. At age 21, Robin returns with a wife, a daughter, and a full tape recorder, documenting his experiences at sea. Though many significant events occurred, I think that Dove is essentially a story about a young man struggling with loneliness. Robin had to sail alone for many days and sometimes weeks at a time, not knowing whether or not he would make it to his destination. When he met his future wife, Patti, his loneliness was eliminated for a while, or until he had to sail again and meet her at a new place. The majority of his tape recordings describe his loneliness. Though he tries many tactics to diminish his loneliness, including getting cats, drinking, talking to the tape recorder, and imagining he was with Patti, he discovers that nothing compares to human interaction. Robin also discovers that a person really doesn’t need much to thrive in life. But perhaps the most important lesson he learns is to never give up and take the easy way out. Even though he wanted to stop sailing and live on an island with Patti and get a normal job, he was pushed by his friends and family to keep going. Had Robin not listened to them and decided not to persevere, he would not have kept the same driven and ambitious personality he had before his voyage and kept when he came home. I would recommend this book. Even though this story doesn’t have a definite plot with an exciting climax, it’s very interesting to see how different someone’s life can be from “the norm.” It is relatable for teenagers and fascinating for adults. Even though this book wasn’t particularly thrilling, it was still entertaining and worth one’s time.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Apr 05 00:00:00 EDT 2014
May i join?
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Posted Thu Jan 30 00:00:00 EST 2014
Can I rp a kit?
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Wed Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2014
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Jan 05 00:00:00 EST 2014
He walked slowly over to dove and touched his nose to hers. Are you sure about this he asked. Yes she responded. Crimsonfang walked to the rear of dove and mounted her. He slowly started hum.ping her as his pe.n.is grew larger and larger. He eventualy gor big enough to put it inside of her. He trust his girth into her (hehe) pu.ssy she moaned purred and arched her back. "Yes crimson yes" she screamed. He tucked his tail inder her and toyed with her pu.ssy as he continued the onslaught of the pounding adding to her pleasure. He felf his final few pounds comming so he quickened up and she purred loudly as he exploded inside of her.
0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Dec 28 00:00:00 EST 2013
[Doesn't Matter. Your choice.] She purred, her ears twitching softly.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Wed Aug 07 00:00:00 EDT 2013
"You're growing up sooo fast!"
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue Aug 06 00:00:00 EDT 2013
*Eats the flowes and walks backwards and holds snakes in her hands* "TrdyfyTRRYGHUBYGHIKKHGFDDEEF"
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Posted Tue Aug 06 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Ikr
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Posted Wed Aug 07 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Thank you
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Posted Sat Mar 09 00:00:00 EST 2013
Ran in "ILL PROTECT HER!!!!"
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Posted Sat Mar 09 00:00:00 EST 2013
"I should just go back to camp now."
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Posted Fri Dec 21 00:00:00 EST 2012
The twoleg runs in and grabs tinykit. He runs to yard result one.
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Posted Sat Dec 22 00:00:00 EST 2012
*looks around*
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Posted Fri Dec 21 00:00:00 EST 2012
Yay mommy
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Posted Sun Jan 13 00:00:00 EST 2013
(Yeah! I got grounded)
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Posted Mon Dec 03 00:00:00 EST 2012
The kits are so adorable good job mother
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Dec 02 00:00:00 EST 2012
Its okay! Just breathe! Where is your clan?
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Posted Sun Dec 02 00:00:00 EST 2012
*nips off their sacks and nudges the kits towards their mother*
-$oulfeather
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Overview
In 1965, 16-year-old Robin Lee Graham began a solo around-the-world voyage from San Pedro, California, in a 24-foot sloop. Five years and 33,000 miles later, he returned to home port with a wife and daughter and enough extraordinary experiences to fill this bestselling book, Dove.
This is a reissue of the now classic adventure story of a boy's solo sailing voyage around the world.