It is September 1945 and WWII has recently ended. Skipper Kent (owner of Zombie Village Restaurant, avid yacht racing competitor, and world traveler) goes to Chicago with his wife Lucille Kent (first mate, cook, artist and author) to take possession of the White Cloud (the 60 foot sail boat designed by Sparkman and Stevens).



Along with a crew of friends and family the Kents plan to sail the White Cloud from Chicago to California in the dead of winter. The journey lasts one hundred and forty days and covers nine thousand miles. Their course takes them along the Great Lakes and through the Erie Canal, down the Hudson River and into the Atlantic. Battling high seas and the loss of sail and life rafts, the White Cloud reaches the Caribbean where tension turns to pleasure. The White Clouds continues it journey with its passage through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific Ocean. San Diego and San Francisco seem a long way off as the winter storms drive the craft farther out to sea.



Lucille Kent describes the trip in her entertaining letters to Eileen, a close friend who is taking care of the Kent’s home in Walnut Creek, California. Lucille writes with the observant eye of an artist, the brilliant wit of a humorist, and the passion of a life-long adventuress.