Currently Away: How Two Disenchanted People Traveled the Great Loop for Nine Months and Returned to the Start, Energized and Optimisti

The walls were closing in on Bruce and Maggie Tate. Isolation forced on them by the pandemic, combined with America's growing political factionalism, threatened their bonds with community and family. Something had to change. Maggie's surprising answer: buy a boat, learn to pilot it, and embark on the Great Loop. For nine months Bruce and Maggie navigated rivers, coastal waters, lakes, locks, and loss. Against all odds, they conquered the Loop, and along the way found common cause across political divides with new friends while blowing the walls off their world.

Bruce and Maggie Tate were spiraling downward. Normally outgoing and cheerful, Maggie was broken down by pandemic isolation. Bruce, facing asthma, heart disease and Covid-related professional issues, was sure that the virus and his comorbidities would kill him. And the plant-based diet he had just started made him wish it would hurry up. Meanwhile, their country seemed to be crumbling into warring factions.

That was when Maggie made a life-changing decision. With no experience, knowing little about seafaring, inboard motors, or navigation, she and Bruce and the family dog decided to take on the Great Loop, a six-thousand-mile journey down inland rivers, around the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and across the Great Lakes. They had to navigate canals and locks, were threatened by dangerous seas, and even had to deal with heartbreaking loss. But along the way, they made new lifelong friends and were forever changed.

When, in a time of great divisiveness, two broken people took on the challenge of their lives, against all odds they found common cause across political divides and made themselves whole again.

布魯斯和瑪吉·泰特（Bruce and Maggie Tate）感到四面環牆。疫情迫使他們與社區和家人疏遠，再加上美國日益嚴重的政治派系主義，威脅著他們的關係。他們必須做出改變。瑪吉出人意料地提出了一個解決方案：買一艘船，學會駕駛，並開始進行大環環（Great Loop）之旅。九個月的時間裡，布魯斯和瑪吉航行在河流、沿海水域、湖泊、船閘和失去的感覺之中。不顧一切，他們征服了這個環環，並在途中與新朋友們跨越政治分歧找到了共同的目標，同時打破了他們的世界。

布魯斯和瑪吉·泰特正陷入困境。平時外向和開朗的瑪吉被疫情隔離打垮了。布魯斯面臨哮喘、心臟病和與Covid相關的職業問題，他確信病毒和他的合併症會害死他。而他剛開始的植物性飲食讓他希望它能快點結束。與此同時，他們的國家似乎正在分崩離析。

就在這個時候，瑪吉做出了一個改變人生的決定。她和布魯斯以及家中的狗，沒有任何經驗，對航海、內置引擎或導航知之甚少，決定踏上大環環之旅，這是一段長達六千英里的旅程，穿越內陸河流，繞過墨西哥灣和大西洋海岸，橫越五大湖。他們必須穿越運河和船閘，面臨危險的海域威脅，甚至不得不面對令人心碎的損失。但在這一路上，他們結交了終身的新朋友，並從此改變了自己。

在分裂嚴重的時刻，兩個傷痕累累的人接受了他們一生中的挑戰，不顧一切地跨越政治分歧，使自己重新完整。