A native Californian, April Winship spent her childhood in New South Wales, Australia and has had a spirit for travel and adventure ever since. Throughout their cruising years, she wrote articles featured in local sailing magazines highlighting the unique challenges and rewards of cruising with their 2 young children on a small sailboat. Now an "empty nester" her bucket list includes a cross country trip in their travel trailer, exploring The Great Loop waterway in the U.S. in a future trawler and writing another book about their escapades as sailboat crew hitchhiking their way across the South Pacific. After working on several aerospace projects including the Space Shuttle Launch Complex and the Titan 3B Missile Program, Bruce took a 2-year hiatus from his work as an engineer and began hitching rides on several sailboats across the Pacific and back with his wife April. The sailing bug took hold, and even after returning to his engineering career, Bruce and April began planning an even more ambitious adventure. Their dream of purchasing their own 33-foot catamaran sailboat and traveling throughout Central and South America with their 2 young daughters was the culmination of 10 years of planning, and preparation.