SUMMERSIDE - Dick Wedge's sailboat, White Cap, has finally come home.
He arrived in Summerside on Sunday after sailing solo for more than five weeks alone from Florida.
The trip was the longest he's ever made alone, but Wedge's sailboat has some mileage.
The 76-year-old Summerside native, and his wife Mary, have had the boat all over the Pacific and Atlantic coasts from Chicago to Texas to Cancun to the Northwest Caribbean since first shipping out almost 13 years ago.
The couple would dock the boat in the summers to come to Summerside, then travel back and sail again in the winters.
This went on consistently until about two years ago when Wedge fell ill and had to have a heart procedure.
During this period of time he had his boat docked in Fort Pierce, Fla., at a marina. This year, Wedge who feels quite healthy now, decided to finally take the boat home.
"I decided rather then pay money down there to keep the boat, I'd go down and get her and sail it home."
Wedge said the boat is a Morgan-34 sailboat, but was only an empty fiberglass hull when he bought it.
"I bought a bare hull in 1968 in Florida and I towed it home back to Canada," he said. "I built her from there. The rest is our own design and our own handy work with friends."
His trip home brought him through the Intracoastal Waterway, through New York City and to meeting a couple friends he had not seen for 38 years, Dan and Mimi Dyer in New England, where he picked up medication his wife sent him.
"When I visited my friends in Rhode Island, when they took me to their house to get my medication, above the front door they had the Summerside, P.E.I. flag," he said. "They had the flag since they were here in 1973. This is the first time they had it out since."
He said the experience of sailing home was a positive one others should try.
"Everybody should do it once in their life."
Wedge said though it was a good trip, he was happy to get home.
"There was a whole pile of people out on the dock when I came in, so I was quite surprised. I thought I'd sneak in, in the middle of the night," he said. "It was quite a nice feeling to have all these people come and greet me."
Finally getting off the ocean and home, the first thing Wedge did was sit down to dinner with his wife and some friends.
"We had a dinner of mussels," he said. "Can't get away from the sea. But they tasted some good."
