Editor’s Note: In a recent edition of Architectural Digest, Mary Wells yacht — which doubles as her home — was featured. Architectural Digest kindly shared their photos with wowOwow, and Mary found herself inspired to share with us the story of her love affair with Strangelove. Click here to see the story as it appeared in Architectural Digest.  

The world looks more beautiful from a boat. I knew that from olden days when my husband and I owned a smaller Feadship very much like my Strangelove.

There are beautiful cities – Paris, Vancouver, Florence, Venice, Hong Kong. There are lovely resorts along the Med and the Caribbean and in the East. There are exotic new experiences waiting for us in developing countries … but they are all more beautiful from the sea or from the river or the lake, even the canal. On the water you miss the grubby sides of civilized life. When you live on a boat the beauty around you takes hold of you and makes you feel lucky – sometimes chosen.

Click here to see photos of Mary Wells’s Strangelove, courtesy of Architectural Digest.

And there is freedom on a boat. If you are in a town or a bay that is not up to your dream, you just move on. Think about it. You don’t have to take off your shoes for the customs man. You don’t have to stand in line. And you don’t have to pack – not your toothbrush or your "Casablanca" DVD or your Charlie Parker CD or any of your tech stuff. All your possessions move on to a new and better place with you and you don’t lift a finger.

I spent so many years working, traveling to clients who had offices in what we all used to joke about as mediocricities – sleeping in beds with cement pillows, eating in restaurants that got stars from us for the number of digestive problems they gave us. My homes, when I could get to them, were lovely mini-palaces because my husband was a builder in the largest sense of the word and he loved big bigger biggest. When he died I thought I had too. I was exhausted and gaga and those mini-palaces were too big. The idea of living on a boat gave my spirit a fizzy lift. I sold the mini-palaces and bought Strangelove and started living a freer life. I didn’t give up London or New York. But I have gotten to know Spain and Turkey and Greece and Croatia so well the head waiters at the restaurants on the sea there call me on Christmas.

There is a special feeling of safety in boat life. We never sail to dangerous places. And the crew has become part of my family. Most marinas are aware and protective. And water sounds are spa sounds. They lower your blood pressure. We had the usual stabilizers for smooth sailing but we also installed the new stabilizers that hold you rock solid in a bay or a port so you don’t eat swinging from side to side. Those stabilizers have given me the most peaceful dinners under the stars – and the sweetest dreams.

You see places you wouldn’t see very well any way but on a boat. The whole family went to Alaska on Strangelove this summer and had a delirium of experiences – whales, sea lions, bears of all kinds, jaw-dropping glaciers and their icebergs in sea so cold we had to wear bright-red survival suits. We looked like a Walt Disney cartoon but falling into that cold of a sea without a survival suit would allow you about two minutes and then Woo! You’re gone. The crew in their red survival suits were at everybody’s elbows. We were gorgeous in a cartoon style – little red stick figures in a world of white and blue ice. Everyone who can should see Alaska. Like Patagonia, where Chili meets Argentina, Alaska is different! Wild! Magnificent!