Written by John, Marie Christine and Rebecca Ridgway and published by Little Brown in 1996 and Warner in 1998 (OUT OF PRINT)

We walked out, leaving the door unlocked, everything in confusion, as if we would return within the hour….

One rainy October day, the Ridgway family embarked on a remarkable family adventure, fulfilling a dream that rarely becomes reality for armchair travellers, longing to escape the pressures and worries of modern life.

Leaving behind their daily routines and the challenges of running their School of Adventure in a remote corner of north-west Scotland, the Ridgways and their crew sailed away from the rocky peninsula that had been their home for the past quarter of a century. Their 57’ ketch English Rose VI became a magic carpet, taking them anywhere the wind blew on an extraordinary voyage, across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and back home again via Antarctica. They visited South Sea island paradises, and remote Andean villages, and braved windswept Patagonian wildernesses and fierce ocean storms. They also endured the trials and tensions of domestic life in a rather confined space, and awaited a very special family reunion for their adopted daughter, Elizabeth (Isso), returning to her native Peruvian jungle for the first time.

With wit, honesty and a great spirit of romance and adventure, Then We Sailed Away tells an exhilarating story of one family’s dream to get away from it all in a life beyond the far horizon.

Postscript 2003 by John Ridgway What a family ride on the magic carpet this was. Ten years after we five set out, Ardmore is still home to us all.

Rebecca married Will and now they have two little children, Molly and Hugh. They live through the wood in the Blue House and Cape Adventure International, their own adventure school, is across the loch at Skerricha.

The John Ridgway School of Adventure is in its 34th year at Ardmore and Andy Adamson is Chief Instructor, he also helps Rebecca and Will whenever possible.

Ardmore is still home to Isso, she’s on a catering course at the moment and phones most nights.

We’ve kept our hands in, sailing to Greenland, round Britain and to America and back, in preparation for the Albatross circumnavigation this year.

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