Accomplishments and Honors:
• First American to complete a solo circumnavigation of the globe via the five Southern Capes: 1983
• Completed the BOC Challenge (a singlehanded, around-the-world race, now known as the Velux 5 Oceans): 1987
• Captained the Around the Americas trip, a 28,000-mile nautical circumnavigation of the American continents to raise awareness about the fragile state of the world’s oceans: 2009

The following introduction is excerpted from sailorsforthesea:
Mark Schrader, a two-time single-handed circumnavigator of the world and the first American to do so via the “Five Capes” of the Southern Ocean, is intimately aware of our fragile ocean environments. A pioneer in promoting awareness of the consequences that dumping of plastics and other waste present to marine life, through lectures and print Mark has carried the message around the world and helped the Center for Environmental Education and other organizations quantify and document the scope of the problem.
The ocean became important to this Nebraska native late in his teenage years, with moves to California and Washington, and his sailing interests have taken him twice around Cape Horn, through the South Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as North Atlantic and Alaskan waters. He believes those of us who love and value the ocean, its health and all it supports have an obligation to be proactive stewards of this precious environment and important resource.

On Mark’s Around the America’s Trip, the following is excerpted from Sarah Jackson’s article in herald.net:
Schrader’s most recent and, perhaps, his most important, ocean adventure was a team effort.

He couldn’t save the oceans alone, after all, and, from what he had seen on his travels — pollution, acidification, melting polar ice caps, collapsing fisheries and coral reef damage — he knew they needed help.

“I wanted to do at least one more long-distance sailing voyage, but I wanted it to be meaningful in a different way. I want to graduate, to become an ocean steward,” he said.

And so the Around the Americas trip was born, a 28,000-mile nautical circumnavigation of the American continents with Schrader as captain.

With support from the conservation group Sailors for the Sea, the Pacific Science Center in Seattle and other corporate sponsors, Schrader took on an epic journey in 2009 to raise awareness about the fragile state of the world’s oceans.

Wednesday night, Schrader will share his Around the Americas story in Mukilteo as part of a free lecture series by the Washington State University Snohomish County Extension Beach Watchers.

“It’s an adventure story,” Schrader said. “But, embedded in the adventure story, we have our science lessons and our education lessons.”

Schrader and three other full-time crew members, all experienced sailors, left Seattle in May 2009 on a 64-foot steel-hulled refurbished sailboat called Ocean Watch.

They sailed clockwise — a nontraditional route against most of the commonly prevailing winds and currents — up around Alaska, through the extremely tricky Northwest Passage, down the East Coast, around South America and back up to Seattle.

Additional guest crew members, including educators and scientists, came aboard along the way.

Crew members blogged and shared photos and videos from the trip as it unfolded atwww.aroundtheamericas.com. Scientists collected important data that has been cited in respected journals, Schrader said.

“In every community we stopped in, we met with someone or made school presentations or talked to scientists and collected their stories,” Schrader said.

While they worked hard at education, they were also challenged by the journey.

They visited more than 50 ports, including stops in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, the Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica and Mexico.

They finally returned to Seattle, 13 months later, in June 2010.

Schrader said their mission was to draw a line, literal and symbolic, around the Americas.

“We’re an island surrounded by an ocean that is in trouble,” he said.

Much like the local Beach Watcher volunteers who invited him to speak, Schrader wants to get more people involved in ocean education and activism.

“People tend to protect what they love, and the ocean now needs some serious love,” he said.

Sources:
“Mark Schrader.” Sailors for the Sea. Web. 2 April 2013.
“Stanwood man has tales of sailing around the Americas.” Herald Net. The Daily Herald, Co. 28 May 2011. Web. 3 April 2013. .