A spread from “The Big Black Dog and the Big Blue Sea.”

When Curt and Cheryl Lindeman bought their first sailboat in 2002, they didn’t hesitate when deciding what to name it before setting off on their first big adventure.

They called it Oread. As in Mount Oread, where they attended law school at Kansas University in the 1990s.

“What we wanted to do was take a little bit of Kansas with us on the trip,” Curt says. “It also was a nice way to pay some respects to KU, without which we might not have been able to take such a journey.”

The boat — and that journey — figure prominently in a new children’s book produced by Curt’s brother, Craig Lindeman, who lives in Wichita.

The book, “The Big Black Dog and the Big Blue Sea,” originally was a Christmas gift from Craig to Curt and Cheryl to help them remember both their dog, Zeta, and the boat.

Curt and Cheryl were attorneys working in Houston when they bought the boat. Curt had the flexibility of having his own law practice, and Cheryl was working for Enron when it folded, so they decided to cut loose and sail around the southern coast of the United States for seven months during 2004.

Along for the ride was Zeta, a 100-pound black lab who was like a child to the Lindemans.

While the journey included many adventures — including being stuck in Florida for several months while hurricanes passed by — the book centers on one day in May spent on Cat Island, off the coast of Mississippi.

“We didn’t see anyone where we were,” Craig says. “It looked like a deserted island. There were these little crab-like creatures Zeta was playing with. It was a great day of just playing around.”

Aside from pictures and memories, the book is one of the few mementos of that day. Zeta died suddenly in 2007. The Oread was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008, a few weeks after the Lindemans’ daughter, Hagen, was born.

Craig Lindeman, who works in marketing for Wichita State University, wanted his niece to know about the love his brother and sister-in-law had for Zeta.

“She was just a big part of their lives,” Craig says. “But she will not be a part of their child’s life. (Hagen) won’t know the dog and them with the dog. I thought I could probably try to write a book to save (Zeta’s) memory and have her live on.”

And Craig hopes others see a little of their own family pets in “The Big Black Dog and the Big Blue Sea.”

“I just hope maybe future generations, kids growing up, can have an appreciation for animals and pets, and see the bond they can have with dogs in particular,” Craig says. “We’re huge dog-lovers, animal lovers, so I hope we can instill that in someone else.”