Taking Time: Sailing with My Family in Southeast Alaska - Paperback

by Larri Irene Spengler (Author)

After her family acquired a sailboat, Larri Irene Spengler gradually realized that though their exact adventures and choices were particular to them, strands from their 18 years afloat might be useful to other people. They made regular wilderness forays from their home in Juneau, during which they became attuned to weather, gained skills and resiliency, coped with emergencies, watched whales and sunsets, read aloud to each other, and had spacious time for both conversations and silence. Taking Time conveys one way to live in the present, and to nurture together-time in the face of brimming schedules and encroaching technology. It provides a life-affirming template, whether or not you own a sailboat!

Scroll down for an link to a 6-5-25 interview with the author.

Praise for Taking Time

In this charming memoir, Taking Time, Larri Spengler joyfully narrates her family's sailing adventures. Beginning as novices, the crew must acquire knowledge and skills: understanding wind and weather, tides and currents, navigation, safety, and being able to "live" in a cramped space. Spengler's stories of sailing the channels, inlets, and coves of Alaska's Inside Passage contain whimsy and mechanics, sailcloth and a recalcitrant motor, magnificent (and very close) wildlife, sudden winds and waves, and a family that learns the limits of their sailing vessel - and of themselves - where the sea is close enough to touch.

- Katie Eberhart, Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska

If you want to know what it is like to sail a small cruiser in Southeast Alaska, Taking Time is your guide. Larri Spengler covers it all, from stocking the galley and thriving in close quarters with her family, to surviving unexpected literal and figurative detours.

- Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name