Behind Every Big Dream  PRO

BEHIND EVERY BIG DREAM

Charles Swindoll shares this story in an issue of Leadership magazine: “On May 24, 1965, a thirteen-and-a half-foot boat quietly slipped out of the marina at Falmouth, Massachusetts for Falmouth, England. It would be the smallest craft ever to make the voyage. Its name? Tinkerbelle. It’s pilot? Robert Manry, a copy editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who felt ten years at the desk was enough boredom for a while, so he took a leave of absence to fulfill his secret dream.

“Manry was afraid, not of the ocean, but of all those people who would try to talk him out of the trip. So he didn’t share it with many, just some relatives and especially his wife, Virginia. She was his greatest source of support.

“The trip? Anything but pleasant. He spent sleepless nights trying to cross shipping lanes without getting run down and sunk. Weeks at sea caused his food to become tasteless. Loneliness, that age-old monster of the deep, led to terrifying hallucinations. His rudder broke three times. Storms swept him overboard, and had it not been for the rope he had knotted around his waist, he would never have been able to pull himself back on board. Finally, after seventy-eight days alone at sea, he sailed into Falmouth, England.

“During those nights at the tiller, he had fantasized about what he would do once he arrived. He expected simply to check into a hotel, eat dinner alone, then the next morning see if, perhaps, the Associated Press might be interested in his story. Was he in for a surprise!

“Word of his approach had spread far and wide....