It was a hot fine day in the middle of November 2003 in the very upper part of the mighty Amazon River in Iquitos Peru where I ended up living for 15 years, when I started to write on this autobiography, realizing that my life at sea had been extremely special in every aspect ever since I started at sea 1963 as a barely 16-year young teenager facing some weird events that would shape me for the rest of my future life at sea, and I was longing to see the real world before I die.

Though I was not a writer the idea of writing this book emerged in a moment of great sadness in February 2002 In Antarctica when I started to think about how it could be, that I was commanding the 2398-ton The World's First Expedition Cruise Ship MS Explorer [Lindblad Explorer] the "Ship in The Wilderness" and my destination was the Prince Gustav Sound in the Weddell Sea east of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Antarctic wilderness, when one of my passengers standing behind my back suddenly said: "This is really going to make the boys back at the golf club jealous".

To write about my own experiences feels kind of strange and from the start I knew that I was incapable of producing a strict biography of all the stunning account of adventures I have had and discoveries we made in those years onboard the Lindblad Explorer in the early 70´s as well as on the Explorer.