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In 1983, when I was 18-years old, I encountered a com-mu-nity of eccen-tric sailors who lived in a secret anchor-age on the far side of the spoil islands a quarter-mile from Miami City Hall. What I found there inspired me and chal-lenged me to expand my per-spec-tives. Though the Dinner Key Anchorage was often dis-missed as a com-mu-nity of dere-licts, bums, winos and thieves, I found instead a group of artic-u-late, capa-ble, inno-v-a-tive, edu-cated, and highly skilled peo-ple who took me in and lit-er-ally ‘taught me the ropes.’ Many of them trav-eled the world, depend-ing on lit-tle but good for-tune and deter-mi-na-tion. At 23, while working on a jazz gui-tar degree, I bought an old 26-foot sail-boat and named her The Blue Monk after the tune by pianist, Thelonious Monk. Six months after grad-u-at-ing, I took off with $30 in my pocket for a series of adven-tures that took me through the Bahamas and even-tu-ally across the Atlantic to Gibraltar. On the sur-face, The Blue Monk is a mem-oir that recounts how I came to love sail-ing, joined a unique com-mu-nity of mis-un-der-stood peo-ple, and sailed away to enjoy a life of adven-ture. The book also pro-vides an account of a spe-cial slice of Miami his-tory that would oth-er-wise remain unrecorded. But The Blue Monk is not really about me; who wants to read a book by an author who can write about him-self for hun-dreds of pages? The Blue Monk is about some-thing much larger; I am but the nar-ra-tor. My expe-ri-ences sail-ing alone on a small boat were beau-ti-ful and some-times ter-ri-fy-ing. Often, they were an odd com-bi-na-tion of both. The Blue Monk tells of an encounter with a remark-able world that lies just beyond the hori-zon and deep within each of us. The Blue Monk is rich life experience translated into prose, a vehicle that transports the reader there and then.
