After her family acquired a sailboat, Larri Irene Spengler gradually realized that though their exact adventures and choices were particular to them, strands from their 18 years afloat might be useful to other people. They made regular wilderness forays from their home in Juneau, during which they became attuned to weather, gained skills and resiliency, coped with emergencies, watched whales and sunsets, read aloud to each other, and had spacious time for both conversations and silence. Taking Time conveys one way to live in the present, and to nurture together-time in the face of brimming schedules and encroaching technology. It provides a life-affirming template, whether or not you own a sailboat!

Praise for Taking Time

In this charming memoir, Taking Time, Larri Spengler joyfully narrates her family’s sailing adventures. Beginning as novices, the crew must acquire knowledge and skills: understanding wind and weather, tides and currents, navigation, safety, and being able to “live” in a cramped space. Spengler’s stories of sailing the channels, inlets, and coves of Alaska’s Inside Passage contain whimsy and mechanics, sailcloth and a recalcitrant motor, magnificent (and very close) wildlife, sudden winds and waves, and a family that learns the limits of their sailing vessel — and of themselves — where the sea is close enough to touch.

— Katie Eberhart, Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska

If you want to know what it is like to sail a small cruiser in Southeast Alaska, Taking Time is your guide. Larri Spengler covers it all, from stocking the galley and thriving in close quarters with her family, to surviving unexpected literal and figurative detours.

— Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name

The sailboat Altariel offers a laboratory for close study of Spengler’s family — or the “ship’s company,” as they call themselves — in which everyone, regardless of age and species, bears a title: Captain, First Mate, Susan Mate, and Ship’s Dog. They are egalitarians, dividing a cookie into equal parts for all. They codify communication rules, agreeing to avoid ambiguous pronouns. And they adhere to loving family rituals like speaking (rather than singing) Happy Birthday to preserve peace for the festivity-sensitive dog. Spengler’s prose reads with joyful formality and reflects a family culture grounded at once in protocol and in play.

— Corinna Cook, Leavetakings

Southeast Alaska: a family, a sailboat, ship logs and chosen memories from 18 years of ownership. Through Larri Spengler’s lively writing, readers watch sea and shore wildlife, phosphorescent water and auroras. We experience storms, breakdowns, and repairs, and we see the family grow and develop through their years of sailing.

— Sarah Isto, Good Company: A Mining Family in Fairbanks and The Fur Farms of Alaska

You can almost smell the ocean as you read Larri Irene Spengler’s memoir of her family’s 18 years on the waters of Southeast Alaska in their Cape Dory sailboat, Altariel, exploring the passages and anchorages...accessible to them from their home in Juneau, Alaska. While some of their voyages are picture perfect sailings and anchorages, there are ones that had times of tension and distress, for example, when the shaft of their engine sheared off... Readers learn the shape of their days — exploring, fishing, boat chores, reading books aloud, and cooking. Over the passage of time, we see her daughter's growing interest in science become her PhD thesis. In a clear writing style, Larri Spengler details time spent as a family in the midst of the overwhelming beauty of being on the water in Southeast Alaska.

— Margo W. Waring, Growing Older in This Place and Sheltering: A Covid Journey in Poetry and Prose

Map Designs by Noah Spengler