Get a piece of paper and pen and answer these three questions now:

1. What have you always wanted to do?

2. What are the reasons you have not yet done it?

3. What are the things you need to do to enable you to do it now?

This is what middle aged Diane and Herbert Stuemer did in 1995. The exercise resulted in selling their family business, renting out their house, pulling their three boys who were all under twelve out of school, and setting out to circumnavigate the globe in a forty-year-old sail boat. Their entire sailing experience consisted of six afternoons on the Ottawa River.

It was a family odyssey to say the least. Four years, 35,000 miles, and 34 countries later, the Stuemer's arrived back where they started on the Ottawa River to a welcoming party of twenty five hundred people.

I have just finished Diane's book "The Voyage of the Northern Magic". It's an 'edge of your seat' read about the families adventure sailing around the world. They battled deadly storms in the North Atlantic, encountered pirates in the Red sea, witnessed the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, were arrested at gun point and entertained like visiting royalty. In four years, their three boys had lived a lifetime!

With tears in my eyes, I'm now reading her closing paragraph:

"...my mind is elsewhere - whether in the past or the future, it's hard to say. To be surrounded by family and trees and water and the sounds of nature has brought a certain magical feeling back with tremendous and unexpected force. Where might I be, right now, if I close my eyes? On a river in Borneo? A camel trek to Timbuktu? What new places and friends are out there, awaiting our discovery? Life - as Michael would say (her son) - is glorious. There's still so much to do, and not a moment to waste."

On Friday, March 15, 2003, less than 2 years after completing her journey, Diane's life was sadly stolen from her by an aggressive cancer. I can barely hold back my tears as I write this because it was only yesterday that I read Diane's obituary in the local paper.

http://www.northernmagic.com

"What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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