Uncharted: A Couple's Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another

by Kim Brown Seely

Overview

Faced with an empty nest, a couple embarks on an epic voyage across land and sea, seeking the mythical blonde Kermode bear—and their truest selves

Kim Brown Seely and her husband had been damn good parents for more than twenty years. That was coming to an end as their youngest son was about to move across the country. The economy was in freefall and their jobs stagnant, so they impulsively decided to buy a big broken sailboat, learn how to sail it, and head up through the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to an expanse of untamed wilderness in search of the elusive blonde Kermode bear that only lives in a secluded Northwest forest.
 
Wise and lyrical, this heartfelt memoir recounts their voyage of discovery into who they were as individuals and as a couple, unfolding amid the stunningly wild archipelago on the far edge of the continent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632172556
Publisher:	Blue Star Press
Publication date:	09/17/2019
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Kim Brown Seely, the 2016 Lowell Thomas Journalist of the Year, has worked in publishing on both coasts, including as senior editor at Travel & Leisure, contributing editor at National Geographic Adventure, and travel editor at Microsoft and Amazon. Her writing has also appeared in Outside, National Geographic Traveler, Sunset, Coastal Living, and Virtuoso Life, where she has been a contributing writer for nearly 20 years.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Maps x

Prologue xv

Part 1 1

Migrations 3

Test Flights 10

Floating Nest 15

Part 2 31

Casting Off 33

Taking the Helm 42

Crossing Over 51

Canada's Amazon 65

Tidal Time 76

Etch-A-Sketched in Blind Bay 81

Here's to Fingers and Toes 89

Boys 95

Rapids 107

The Real World 115

The Luxury of Slowness 128

The Big Drop-Off 131

Part 3 149

True North 151

Humpbacks 162

Skull Cove 168

Hakai 172

Serpent Islands 180

Shearwater 189

Klemtu 199

Meyers Narrows 211

Looking for a Longhouse 218

Black Bear 225

Kent Inlet 230

Princess Royal Island-At Last 237

Clove Hitch 244

Healing 249

Into the Great Bear Rainforest 253

Mooksgm'ol 258

More Canvas! 265

Acknowledgments 273

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2019

In a debut memoir that tacks between sailing and parenting, travel writer Seely details a circuitous series of adventures that occasionally veers off course. She and her husband, James, reevaluate their lives following career changes and health threats, and decide “we could live safe, small lives or try something totally new.” That something new translates to “a ridiculous amount of boat”—the purchase of Heron, a “fifty-four-foot money pit” neither knows how to sail. Driven by a quest—Seely to spot the rare spirit bear in Canada’s Great Bear Rain Forest, James to uncover an ancient longhouse in British Columbia—the couple set sail from Seattle following their younger son’s departure for college. They guide Heron northward in a trial-by-water journey, dodging rapids, exploring deepwater fjords, anchoring in remote coves and learning about First Nations culture in tribal villages threatened by pipeline development. Seely’s travel writing is luminous, her prose mystical and revelatory—“the exquisite solitude felt glorious... like a gift to myself, and I tried to memorize these moments... to keep all these things inside me”—but in describing the empty nest, she relies on such clichés as feeling “punched in the gut.” Regardless, Seely’s nautical journey makes for an intimate, satisfying narrative. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Nancy Pearl Book Award Finalist 2020

Silver Nautilus Book Award Winner 2019

“Refreshingly relatable...Uncharted [is a] firm reminder that despite the independent allure of solo travel, sometimes we can’t change on our own.”
—Outside

“Exquisitely written.”
—Forbes

“Seely captures the action and nature encountered on the couple’s journey in lyrical prose and descriptions. As they navigate their way through fiords and rough waters and feel the sting of cold air, they also find a new way to envision their future together.”
—Wall Street Journal, “The Best Books About Retirement and Aging of 2019”

“Like Cheryl Strayed and M. Wylie Blanchett, Kim Brown Seely reminds us that the best travel narratives are about emotional explorations even more than physical ones.”
—Erica Bauermeister, bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients

“Seely’s travel writing is luminous, her prose mystical and revelatory...[her] nautical journey makes for an intimate, satisfying narrative.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Just because I’ll never follow in Seely's footsteps doesn’t mean that reading the account of her journey wasn’t wonderfully exciting from the safety of my sofa.”
—Margot Kahn, Bust 

“There are close calls, lost anchors and lost tempers, yet what Seely finds along the way makes Uncharted one of the most compelling books of nature writing that I’ve read in a while.”
—Post and Courier

“Uncharted is a marvelous journey of beauty and wonder, love and loss, loons and eagles, hemlocks and giant kelp, sea wolves, humpback whales, and bears.”       
—Ana Maria Spagna, author of Uplake
 
“Uncharted is the Moby Dick of empty-nest tales. Kim Brown Seely, her sons suddenly grown-up and gone, journeys on a sailboat through risky Northwest waters, meditating on the pains and blessings of marriage, parenthood, and escape to the wilds.”         
—Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14
 
“Kim Seely’s page-turning meditation on marriage, family, letting go, and the pull of the unknown is equal parts inspiration and confessional, with the untamed Pacific Northwest coast as a backdrop.”     
—Marika Cain, Virtuoso Life
 
“Uncharted takes us on a voyage of adventure that is at its heart, a meditation on the changing nature of love.”       
—Leslie T. Sharpe, author of The Quarry Fox
 
“A beautifully transporting journey.” 
—Paul Nicklen, National Geographic photographer

From the Publisher