Recently, I found the Illinois Council newsletter in my mailbox.  Along with last month’s meeting minutes and the calendar of coming events was a reprint of a news article about two sailors who had just been lost at sea.  It got my attention right away because I knew the men. 

Quen Cultra, Joe Strykowski and Leo Sherman set off to sail around the world on a 43 foot catamaran named Quequeg II.  It was to have been a two and a half year voyage divided into three legs.  On January 20, 2009 they were on the last leg of their trip when they were caught in a severe storm about 200 miles off of Madagascar.  In high winds and fifty foot waves their boat capsized, throwing Quen Cultra into the storm.  Joe Strykowski and Leo Sherman were trapped below in the upside-down craft.  Joe was lost trying to make his way out of the boat.  Leo was rescued by the men of a French Naval Vessel two days later hanging on to the overturned craft.

Although I was not well acquainted with Joe Strykowski but I met and talked with him several times at events such as Our World Underwater.  Although he had been recently living in Florida, he was originally from the Chicago area.  He wrote the book, Diving for Fun, which many of us used as an entry-level scuba textbook in the 70’s and 80’s.  Literally, thousands of divers were introduced to the underwater world through his book.

I met Quen Cultra at the Adler Planetarium when I took a navigation course he was teaching there in 1978.  Quen made the class come alive with his stories of building a trimaran named Quequeg and sailing it around the world a few years earlier.  I still have a copy of the book he wrote about it in my library.  Although I never sailed around the world, he has long been an inspiration to me as a mariner.

The loss of these two men is a loss to all of us who go out to sea, sail upon her waters and dive her depths.  It is sobering to be reminded that even the best of us can be swept away by forces of nature too powerful to resist.  When we venture out on the water we are out of our natural environment.  The risks are real but without risk nothing is gained and life seems meaningless.