From Turkey to Minnesota by boat

It’s back to the cubicle wars. Monday, perhaps, is the day you wonder whether you should pursue that bucket list item instead.

If you need the inspiration, look true north where Banu Oney and Peter Saggers have tied their sailboat up at Spirit Lake Marina in Duluth, the Duluth News Tribune says.

They sailed from Turkey, and now their boat is being readied for shipping to the Pacific Northwest, where they’ll continue their trip up toward Alaska.

Jealous yet?

They started their sail in June 2014.

Ten years ago, brain surgery brought about a “wake-up call” for Oney. She had suffered an aneurysm. The episode got her thinking hard about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

“All those things you put off until tomorrow and then you realize today is tomorrow,” she said. “I had all these places to sail. You keep pushing off what you really want to do.”

Her parents were avid competitive sailors and she grew up on boats. It has never left her.
Just more than a month after her surgery, “I was on my boat.”

“I think she’s an amazing woman,” Durgunoglu said of Oney’s new life outside of academia. “I really respect her for” taking to the seas.

Saggers and Oney left Portugal in January. Lake Superior, which they said reminds them of the Mediterranean, was a breeze compared to crossing the Atlantic, they said.

They’d like to stick around and check out Duluth more, but they have to get to Seattle because there’s more places they’d like to see than time to see them.

“If we weren’t so old,” Saggers said.

Related: The summer than never was (NY Times)