The Voyage of Erasmus
Volume 2 - Greenland to the Mediterranean

David and Helga Zimmerly

An adventure-packed, 10-year voyage on Erasmus, their 35' cutter-rigged aluminum sailboat, took David and Helga Zimmerly from Ottawa, Canada to Phuket, Thailand. After a drama-filled Atlantic crossing to Scotland, they traversed the Mediterranean and lived and worked in Turkey, Cyprus, Sudan, Mozambique and Sri Lanka.

This extraordinary tale of survival opens Volume 2 of The Voyage of Erasmus, the Zimmerlys’ continuing memoir of their 10-year sailing odyssey from Canada to Thailand. Volume 1 took them down the St. Lawrence and up the Labrador coast to Baffin Island and Greenland. In this, the second of three parts, Helga and David discover generous Scottish hospitality along the Caledonia Canal and confusing English eccentricity in the port of Tollesbury. They cruise the lovely canals of Holland and Belgium, where they’re adopted by a water-ski club and feted as celebrities. From a romantic berth in Paris, they reach the Mediterranean to island-hop in Greece and teach English in Turkey, becoming part of a cosmopolitan cruising culture – intrepid risk-takers from many lands, for whom each day brings some unexpected drama.

In its 238 lavishly illustrated pages, Volume 2 of The Voyage of Erasmus is packed with humour, great stories, stunning photographs, and charts.  David and Helga’s tale is a heady mix of the familiar and the exotic, the idyllic and the life-threatening, the splendours of the wilderness and the warmth of strangers. It will delight seasoned sailors and armchair travelers alike.

     —Roy MacSkimming, author of Laurier in Love