Delray Beach, FL – Author Kim Petersen announces the release of her debut travel memoir, Charting the Unknown: Family, Fear, and One Long Boat Ride (ISBN 978-1-933016-63-4). Charting the Unknown was published by Behler Publications in July, 2010.
Charting the Unknown describes the adventures of Petersen, a Colorado native who, at twenty years old, married college sweetheart, Mike. While at Trinity Western University outside Vancouver, British Columbia, the couple created a bucket list of achievements they hoped to accomplish before they died, including building a boat and sailing it across the Atlantic. The Petersens homeschooled their two children, started a construction company, built three custom homes themselves, and carved out a life in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. After losing their second child to SIDS, Kim and Mike rediscovered their forgotten bucket list. Inspired, they decided to sell their belongings and take their two children, ages 14 and 11, on a boating adventure across the Atlantic aboard the 65 foot power catamaran, Chrysalis, which they discovered as an empty, fiberglass hull in a farmer’s field in New Zealand. Without any prior boating or boat building experience, they constructed and installed everything from the electrical and plumbing, to cupboards and carpeting, moving aboard full-time as a family in 2005.
Despite Petersen’s fear of the water, the family crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 2007. In addition to their travel in the US, Canada, and the Bahamas, they cruised for two years in the Mediterranean, traveling to Bermuda, Morocco, Gibraltar, Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Israel. Learning to live together 24/7 as a family in tight quarters, the Petersens also mastered the intricacies of navigation, overnight passages, spear fishing, boat system maintenance, onboard cooking, and anchoring. Charting the Unknown chronicles not only Kim Petersen’s physical dream of sailing across the globe, but also her spiritual odyssey through motherhood, marriage, the loss of a child, and the understanding of her own personal strengths and weaknesses. Like the highly-praised
Eat, Pray, Love,
Charting the Unknown describes Petersen’s journey of self-discovery as she travels the world with her young family aboard the Chrysalis.
“Experiencing loss,” Petersen says, “was the wake-up call that propelled me to reevaluate my course in life. The decision to live on a boat with my husband and kids gave me the opportunity to address those things that had been missing, quality time with myself and my family, as well as face my fear of the water. The biggest surprise, despite the heart palpitations and learning curve, was how much joy and power can result from completely changing your life mid-way through the journey. I am a hearty believer in risk, in pilgrimage.”
Kim Petersen was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but her family moved to Denver, Colorado, shortly after her birth, and it was there that she spent her childhood. Petersen attended Trinity Western University in British Columbia, Canada, where she majored in psychology. She homeschooled her two children, and along with her husband, Mike, helped start and run their construction company, building custom houses and creating the interior and power systems for her family’s 65-foot catamaran, Chrysalis. An accomplished speaker and author, Petersen has written articles for publications like Southern Boating and Multihull Quarterly, and has appeared on Lifetime Television's morning show, The Balancing Act, and The Rhode Show at WPRI TV-
CBS 12. Petersen makes her home on the east coast of Florida, where she resides aboard Chrysalis with Mike, son Stefan, and Cavalier Spaniel, Skipper.
For more information on the author or Charting the Unknown, please visit website.
