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I recently returned from a two-and-a-half-week trip, a little more than half of which was on board a small cruising yacht around the Iberian Peninsula. You can read about that trip here. It turns out I was also the resident “writer on board.”

Planning ahead, I had brought my laptop. I had just returned from a long road trip around New England and, with only two days at home before boarding the plane, wanted to make some headway on new writing I had in mind. The first few days of the trip were crammed with non-stop touristing in Lisbon, but the first day of the cruise was an “at sea” day, perfect to jump-start my writing project. And so I did.

I had set up in the yacht club of the ship on my last cruise, but since those pre-covid days the shipping line (Windstar) had expanded their three star-class ships (yachts) by literally cutting them down the middle and inserting a new section. The ship still only had a maximum passenger capacity of 312 (previously it had been about 250, which is actually all we had on board for this trip). They also did some tweaking to the yacht club to replace laptop-height tables with lower tables more convenient for socializing than working. So my cabin suite became my writer’s garret.

About 100 passengers had made “the crossing,” that is, were on board as the ship relocated from its Caribbean winter quarters to its Mediterranean summer quarters. About half of those continued on the Lisbon to Barcelona portion, along with others like me joining the ship in the Portuguese capital. With no ports for nearly 14 days on the crossing, I started wondering if it might make a great writer’s retreat option. As it was, other than the first and last days “at sea,” each day of the cruise was filled with excursions in the various ports, meals, socializing with other travelers, and other entertainment. It took some discipline (not my strong point) to carve out writing time. But that time I did carve out was remarkably productive. I was able to punch out between 1000 and 2000 words a day, which is quite an achievement for a nonfiction book. It helps that the book is a blended travel memoir/history.

But that wasn’t the only writer on board experience.

The first question whenever meeting someone new is inevitably “what do you do for a living” (or “what did you do for a living” since some of the passengers are retired). My answer is usually some variation of “I write books,” sometimes prefaced with “I’m a former scientist and now a full-time Abraham Lincoln historian.” That led to a particularly interesting conversation on one occasion that led to an almost unbelievable “small world” type coincidence.

One night we were eating in the new Cuadro 44 restaurant, one of the additions made possible by the expansion of the ship. We sat at a table for four and began our meal. About halfway through, the maitre d’ seated a couple from California, and we began to talk. When I mentioned that I write books on Abraham Lincoln the man’s ears perked up. It turns out their son-in-law is a history geek and has a rambunctiously irreverent podcast about the presidents, at least from Washington up to Andrew Jackson. We had a great talk and chatted again off and on the rest of the cruise.

I had intentionally avoided internet service on the ship, but a couple of days later in a port I did get Wi-Fi and checked my email. To my surprise I had received an email from my colleague in the Lincoln Group forwarding a message he had received from one of his long-time colleagues in his field of profession. In short, the guy from the ship had emailed several people that were part of his book group back in California. One of their members had known my colleague for decades and asked if he had ever heard of me. Of course, this colleague just happens to be on my Lincoln Group board, the organization of which I am president. As the guy on the ship said when he found out: Small world.

I had also brought on board a copy of my latest book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, with the intention of donating it to the ship’s small library. I left it in the library, which had shrunk to make room for the new restaurant and moved to the yacht club, on the first day at sea. By the next night it had disappeared, and I never saw it again, which means either someone is a slow reader or decided to take it with them. I wished I had brought a second copy to repopulate the library but my luggage was already pushing the limits of weight and breadth.

It’s getting close to a week since I’ve been home from the trip and so far haven’t been able to recapture the writing momentum I had on the ship. Not only was there close to a month of catch up to do (including the road trip time I was away for over four of five weeks), but I managed to snag the flu or something (not covid) within a day of my return that I’m just now scraping my way out of. But hey, tomorrow it’s supposed to rain.

That sounds like a good excuse for a “sea day.”

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius is available for purchase at all bookseller outlets. Limited signed copies are available here. The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. If you read the book, please leave a review and/or rating.

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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.