Alan Hardwick grew up on a farm outside the beautiful town of Abingdon, Virginia. When he moved close enough to smell salt water, he took Ismael’s lead to sail about a little and see the watery side of the world, buying a sailboat and ultimately becoming a yacht broker, selling boats on the Chesapeake Bay, Cape Cod, and San Diego. After twenty-five years, the wind blew Alan and his wife Lisa back to Virginia where he began writing thinly disguised fiction and sea stories. When not writing, he can be found chasing two headstrong border collies, leaks on a twelve-foot wooden sailing dink, and his youth coaching tennis at his alma mater, Emory & Henry College.