Stephen Ladd was born in Bremerton, Washington in 1953. As a child he was happy to sit in a corner reading history and geography books. After high school he traveled through Europe, Asia, and Africa, inadvertently witnessing the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and passing a traumatic month in a Moroccan prison. He navigated the emotional crisis of his youth alone in foreign cultures. Upon his return Steve studied urban planning, obtaining degrees from Western Washington and Harvard Universities. He has worked for various Puget Sound counties and cities, writing land use plans and administering environmental regulations. He periodically took sabbatical for major travels. Between times he kept his wanderlust at bay by wilderness skiing, canoeing, and sailing. Steve spent three years designing and building his 12-foot boat, SQUEAK, and three more years sailing her alone through some of the most remote places in the Western Hemisphere. Steve returned home in 1993. He then wrote and self-published his book, THREE YEARS IN A 12-FOOT BOAT, a second edition of which is now available. In 2009 Steve teamed up with now-wife Ginny to spend five years on a 21-foot boat, traveling from Florida down through the western Caribbean, then up the Orinoco River. In southern Venezuela they found an inexplicable headwater inter-connection to the Rio Negro and descended the latter into the Amazon. They then ascended the Madeira and to Bolivia, from which point they transported the boat to the Rio Paraguay, which they descended to its mouth at Buenos Aires, Argentina. Similarly, via the Uruguay, Parana, Araguaia, and Tocantins Rivers they sailed, motored, and rowed back north to the mouth of the Amazon, having a son along the way in Brazil. Ginny and Baby George flew home from Belem, allowing Steve to continue homeward via open sea until he was shipwrecked in the Dominican Republic. That voyage is the subject of a new book, THE FIVE-YEAR VOYAGE: EXPLORING LATIN AMERICAN COASTS and RIVERS. The Ladds live in Bremerton, Washington. Steve is a frequent contributor to Small Craft Advisor magazine. See stephen-ladd.com.
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