A DVD BY PAUL AND SHERYL SHARD (SHARD MULTIMEDIA, 2005; 4 HOURS; $19.95 U.S., $24.95 CAN)
REVIEWED BY KAREN LARSON

Paul and Sheryl Shard are professional videographers who tour the world by sailboat. I’m not sure which came first: sailing and the need to record it for the rest of us, or video skills and the desire to circumnavigate, recording the voyage as they went. No matter. It was a happy concurrence of two people with good skills, a concurrence that has been well appreciated by those who have been “sailing with the Shards” since they began selling copies of their sailing productions in the late 1980s.

The newest DVD, Distant Shores: Volume 5 (Special Sailor’s Edition), is huge in many ways. There are nine busy episodes, each 30 minutes in length, along with some additional commentaries and tips. This DVD will keep you entertained for hours. The previous disks in the series include the Western Mediterranean, the Central Mediterranean, Venice and the Adriatic, and Greece and Turkey, Part 1.

The market for this DVD is much broader than our smallish sailing niche. The Shards are dedicated sailors who built their own Classic 37, Two-Step. And they are savvy marketing professionals who realize that they’re creating a travelogue series with a wider appeal than the potential sailing audience. Even the Special Sailor’s Edition version of Volume 5 is probably 90-percent travel-focused and 10-percent sailing. The travel information is, however, of great interest to sailors who will be visiting the Shards’ travel areas. Volume 5 offers what this dynamic twosome saw, where they went, and the people and events that made these places special. They offer a touch of history and cultural insight before shoving off to the next destination. It will be of interest to many whether they arrive in Greece and Turkey by sailboat, cruise ship, or airplane.

At Good Old Boat, we remind our readers (through our Cruising Memories articles, Reflections, the center spread, and so on) about the joy of sailing. In this way we all are reminded of the real reason for working on our boats: so we can sail. The Shards take it one step further. They remind us why we sail: so we can visit interesting places and meet interesting people.

With their very professional video presentations, Paul and Sheryl Shard invite us along on a world cruise. It’s a trip well worth taking.