-- PeopleMany people go to the sea in boats, but few of them write as movingly about the experience as Peter Nichols does in this enthralling meditation on the wonders of sailing, the mystery of the sea, and the ebbs and flows of love. With only a sextant, his own instincts as a seasoned sailor, and a boat full of memories of his foundering marriage, Nichols sets out alone from England for Maine, where he plans to sell his beloved twenty-seven-foot sailboat, Toad.Combining the adventure of Into Thin Air, the nautical lore of The Perfect Storm, and the spiritual self-discovery of The Snow Leopard, this thrilling adventure is a classic tale of a man struggling to come to terms with his reckless spirit, his highest hopes, and his broken dreams."An alarming account, told with remarkable calmness ... that should sweep away even the most resolute landlubber". -- Time"A tale leavened with humor, keen observation, and old-fashioned sailing drama". -- Outside"Nichols is marvelous at describing the feelings of awe and loneliness that the sea inspires". -- The New York Times Book Review

    Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop Spray in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world’s great circumnavigators – Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for its courage, skill, and determination.Sailing Alone around the World recounts Slocum’s wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indians in Tierra del Fuego; raging tempests and treacherous coral reefs; flying fish for breakfast in the Pacific; and a hilarious visit with fellow explorer Henry Stanley in South Africa. A century later, Slocum’s incomparable book endures as one of the greatest narratives of adventure ever written.

    written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834.While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles, which affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway) and being something of a non-conformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor on a voyage around Cape Horn on the brig Pilgrim. He returned to Massachusetts two years later aboard the Alert (which left California sooner than the Pilgrim).He kept a diary throughout the voyage, and after returning he wrote a recognized American classic, Two Years Before the Mast, published in 1840, the same year of his admission to the bar.

    Jones survives storms, dismastings, arrest by the Soviet Navy, being sunk by whales, and the smuggling of Edam cheese and Barbary apes. Through his eyes we get to meet an intriguing cast of dockside characters: Karl, the German fish-canning salesman; Pete, the Australian smuggler; Sissie, the Englishwoman who wheedles her way permanently aboard; and Nelson, Jones' three-legged dog.

    Their initial optimism is short-lived, however, as the ice field slowly thickens, encasing the ship Endurance in a death-grip, crushing their craft, and marooning 28 men on a polar ice floe.In an epic struggle of man versus the elements, Shackleton leads his team on a harrowing quest for survival over some of the most unforgiving terrain in the world. Icy, tempestuous seas full of gargantuan waves, mountainous glaciers and icebergs, unending brutal cold, and ever-looming starvation are their mortal foes as Shackleton and his men struggle to stay alive.What happened to those brave men forever stands as a testament to their strength of will and the power of human endurance.This is their story, as told by the man who led them.

    It is a story of a leisurely sail through the Gulf of Cortez and on through Panama Canal to the Azores and England. Cruising in Seraffyn is also a carefully thought out guide to living aboard a small boat, with fun and economy as the guide principles. Four appendices provide data that is vital for anyone comtemplating long distance cruising.

    in Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he disocvers the existence of Force 13 winds. Approaching Japan at the end of a particularly trying delivery, he finds himself sailing in "a high impact debris zone," but his resolve is unshaken. "If a piece of rocketship jetsam fell out of the sky and sank [me] after encounters with Hurricane Floyd, General Noriega, a tsunami, an erupting volcano, and Typhoon Roy, then it was meant to be."

    The account of how the Essex was wrecked inspired the infamous book Moby Dick and countless movies, including the newest, In the Heart of the Sea. The perils of sea, storms, nefarious intent of evil men and fate combined to bring an end to a long whaling voyage – typically hard and grueling enough without suffering an attack by a furious and vengeful sperm whale. The story, told in a first-person narrative by Owen Chase, the first mate of the Essex, was first published in 1821 and served to inspire Herman Melville to write his fictional book of the attack by the whale. The perseverance and determination of the crew, mate, and captain to use each and every tool and morsel available to them in salvage from the wrecked Essex to outfit their flimsy whaleboats for a voyage of more than 2,500 miles back to the South American coast is remarkable in many ways. Every ounce of energy and civility rapidly evaporated after two months at sea. The story not told by Melville may be the best part though the attack by the whale is still impressive if one imagines being on the small ship as the leviathan repeatedly bashes in the hull. In addition to the stirring account by Owen Chase are parts of the account by cabin boy Thomas Nickerson. Nickerson returned to the seas on whale ships following the Essex shipwreck, one of just a few known to have been sunk by a whale. After he retired to running a boarding house in Nantucket was when Nickerson finally wrote his account of the Essex and the plight of the crew. Nickerson only put pen to paper when challenged by a visiting author. When the writer, Leon Lewis, escaping from his creditors, became acquainted with Nickerson, he encouraged him to write down his tale of the incredible Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex. Nickerson did so and entrusted the manuscript to the erstwhile writer who promised to get it published and then fled to England. Over one hundred years later the Nickerson account The Loss of the Ship "Essex" Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats; was discovered in an old trunk and authenticated by the Nantucket Historical Association and published in 1984, a century after Nickerson wrote it. Nickerson’s story told of the incredible attack on the Essex while two of the whaleboats were in the hunt to harpoon their prey. The first attack crashed the vessel and rocked it hard. Then, Nickerson wrote that the monster whale turned and rammed the Essex again, causing it to heave, break apart and sink. The crew began their search for land and eventually found a small island that was rather poor in resources. The sailors, with the exception of three men who decided to stay on the island, left in search of a better island, the mainland or perhaps a ship. Chase described how during the 90-day journey to the coast of Chile, the men were forced to eat one of their fellow sailors who had died. Nickerson was less than specific about the act of cannibalism and was on the same whaling boat with Chase. The other boat commanded by Capt. Pollard had, but four men left alive and too weak to continue. Finally, they decided to draw lots to determine who would have to be shot so that the others could live. The young cousin of the captain was the loser in that drawing and was killed. Only eight of the crew of twenty survived. It was later revealed that the three men who stayed behind on the island were rescued, and two of the boats made it to Chile.

    Their globe-spanning travels and side-splitting adventures are recounted in Blown Away, a sort of Swiss Family Robinson by way of the Marx Brothers.

    When he agreed to command the Fantome, Windjammer's marquee ship, a beautiful 282-foot schooner that "sailed like a pig" in the Gulf of Honduras, he knew that a storm would leave him little space to run. In the southern reaches of the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Mitch whirled to life like a nebula and became Captain March's worst nightmare--a category five storm with 180-mile-per-hour winds and fifty-foot seas. After discharging his passengers in Belize, Captain March and his crew, most of them West Indians, took the $20 million uninsured tall ship out to sea to dodge the approaching storm. What ensued was a deadly game of cat and mouse that confounded experts' predictions and cornered the Fantome with eerie precision. Based on journalist Jim Carrier's exhaustive research and hundreds of interviews, The Ship and the Storm explores the story of the Fantome and Hurricane Mitch from every angle. From the deck of the ship, to the research planes flying into the eye of the hurricane, to islanders and coastal villagers in a desperate battle for survival, The Ship and the Storm is the heartbreaking and horrifying story of the most destructive hurricane in Western Hemisphere history.

    I felt a great lurch and heel, and a thunder of sound filled my ears. I was conscious, in a terrified moment, of being driven into the front and side of my bunk with tremendous force. At the same time there was a tearing cracking sound, as if Tzu Hang was being ripped apart, and water burst solidly, raging into the cabin. There was darkness, black boards, and I fought wildly to get out, thinking Tzu Hang had already gone. Then suddenly I was standing again, waist deep in water, and floorboards and cushions, mattresses and books were sloshing in wild confusion round me.’Miles Smeeton and his wife Beryl sailed their 46-ft Bermuda ketch, Tzu Hang, in the wild seas of Cape Horn, following the tracks of the old sailing clippers through the world’s most notorious waters. This is an exciting true story of survival against all odds, but it is also a thoughtful book which provides hard-learned lessons for other intrepid sailors.As Nevil Shute writes in his foreword: ‘It has been left to Miles Smeeton to tell us in clear and simple language just where the limits of safety lie.’

    You dream about the ship, and gradually the dream consumes you. Practical considerations lose all meaning ... until, inevitably, the dream morphs into a nightmare. David Vann is familiar with that nightmare. His begins in Turkey: a thirty-year-old tourist, he stumbles across the steel frame of a ninety-foot sailboat that cries out to be built. From friends, family, and credit cards, he borrows the 150,000 to construct the ship. The Turkish builders take shameless advantage of him, eventually charging him over 500,000. On the edge of financial ruin, Vann starts a chartering business. But, when some new part of the ship isn't falling apart, he encounters freak storms. As his debts escalate, Vann begins to wonder if he is merely repeating his father's dreams and failures at sea—which ended with his father's suicide. At once a page-turning true story of adventure on the open ocean and an archetypal tale of one man's attempt to overcome fate and realize his dream, A Mile Down is an unforgettable story of struggle and redemption by a writer at the top of his form.

    In some ways the model for the new wave of adventure books, Adrift is an undeniable seafaring classic, a riveting firsthand account by the only man known to have survived more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized only six days out. Adrift is a must-have for any adventure library.

    Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of Scott's team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey, draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account of Scott's legendary expedition. Cherry himself would be among the search party that discovered the corpses of Scott and his men, who had long since perished from starvation and brutal cold. It is through Cherry's insightful narrative and keen descriptions that Scott and the other members of the expedition are fully memorialized.

    This breathtakingly personal true story will thrill those wanting to sail off into the sunset or enjoy the wonders of the world from the comfort of home. Escape from the Ordinary reminds you of the unlimited possibilities in life and nudges the reader into thoughts of their own dreams.  Not a technical book about sailing or storm tactics but vividly described, full-tilt adventures on foreign shores.   WHAT READERS ARE SAYING “Secretly, we wish we had it in us, but life, fear, jobs, money or whatever creates roadblocks. What courage they must have had to follow this dream! So many places, so many adventures, and lessons learned. All along, because of Julie's descriptions, you are thinking, "How would I have handled that?" "What would I have done?" I love that it's written from a woman's point of view; and from someone who had little sailing experience. I recommend it highly!”“Couldn’t put it down,” described one reader, “as Escape from the Ordinary took me beyond the glimpses of liveaboard life told in sailing and travel magazines.  I felt like I was onboard as they fought storms in the north Atlantic their first week at sea, navigated the Panama Canal dwarfed by oil tankers, and snorkeled in crystal clear Polynesian waters.”“Told with keen observations and sparkling with wry humor, Julie Bradley describes the terrors and pleasures of living an independent life where simple decisions have big consequences; where the mundane is seconds away from a life-threatening scare; and where seafaring obstacles can pale next to facing personal challenges.  If you have an ounce of adventure in your soul, read this book.”   “Ordinary people can do extraordinary things...This is not a trip to Cabo for a two-week vacation.  This is true life …, on the edge real adventure.  I loved it…” Amazon Reviewer GREAT PEOPLE, PLACES AND PROSE You will want an atlas by your side as you travel from one epic adventure to the next with Glen and Julie on board their floating home; an Amel sailboat.  Immerse yourself deeply into islands and cultures and come along as they dodge voodoo curses in the Bahamas, claw their way out of an underwater cavern in the South Pacific, and experience adventures of a lifetime in places such as:* Bequia* Caribbean* Trinidad* Venezuela* Colombia* San Blas islands* Peru* Galapagos Islands* Marquesas Islands* Tuamotu Islands* Tahiti* Palmerston Island* Niue* Tonga* New Zealand* Fiji