Donna's Story

Donna — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:10:38 GMT

Donna, a qualified nurse, hails from the farm country of Saratoga in northern New York where she was involved heavily in athletics and endurance water sports. Competitive whitewater kayaking and canoeing among other activities were a big part of Donna's years. She married young and had four children, Ptarmigan, 27, Kristy 25, Cooper, 24 and Keel, 23, all attending college in the States. Donna was married 20 years and in 1998 she separated.

Donna was involved in a horrific car accident in which a number of people lost their lives. She was extremely lucky to survive the crash. She was traveling home one night from her job in the hospital when the accident changed her forever

Personal Journal Summary: Contrary to everything I believe in with my job as a nurse and caring for people, I ended up in this horrible situation. When I tried to move on I found I was a completely different person. I ended up taking a job on a tall ship (luxury passenger ship), the Clipper City out of Baltimore, Maryland. I thought perhaps I would sail around the world one day on this boat. I also dove into my old religious beliefs as an answer to my dilemma thinking I might eventually become a nun.

Sadly the tall ship's endeavor to sail around the world fell through and Donna was very disappointed. She wasn't a qualified sailor but decided that she wanted to learn. Donna wanted to buy a boat and her brother Jeff was willing to help out financially. Donna hopped a ride as a chef on a boat headed to the Caribbean.

Donna ended up in St Thomas where she planted herself for a while and worked on boats as well as playing her music. An inspired idea later arose of taking her music show to the high seas, like a sailing minstrel. One of Donna's dearest new friends, Michael Bean, provided encouragement and support. Donna finally found a boat in November of 2000, a Southern Cross 28 she would soon give the name Inspired Insanity. The boat had been surveyed but the inspection was all wrong. There was nothing on that boat that was useful to her. She worked seven days a week to rebuild it. She even had to rebuild the hull of the boat. It took Donna 18 months to get the boat seaworthy in hopes of sailing around the world by herself.