Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Crew Member goes below the waterline to explore the cramped, dirty, and dimly lit crew areas on a revealing tour of the ship's underworld. Go where no passenger has gone before and learn what the crew eats, where they sleep, how they party, and finally understand why all of the officers on a cruise ship are Italian.Climb aboard an adventure on the high seas and witness the wonderful side of ship life where crew members have whirlwind escapades while traveling the world aboard a massive sailing city.Drawing from his experiences working as a musician aboard cruise ships for more than five years, Joshua tells the laugh-out-loud funny and also beautifully poignant story of what cruise ship crew members experience from the minute they first step onto a ship to the day they walk down that gangway for the last time.

    A reporter with a beautiful wife and talented son, Richey couldn’t imagine how it could be any better....Then his marriage falls apart and he can’t imagine how it could be any worse.The divorce leaves Richey questioning everything, while struggling to find a way forward. To get his bearings, he enters the first Ultimate Florida Challenge, an all-out twelve-hundred-mile kayak race around Florida.The UFC is less of a race than it is a dare or a threat. The thirty-day deadline sets a grueling, twenty-four-hour-a-day pace through shark- , alligator- , and even python-infested waters. But those twelve hundred miles are only a fraction of a journey that pulls Richey back to when he was embedded with troops in Iraq, reporting on missing children, and hiking the mountains of Montana with his son, and shows him where he went wrong, where he went right, and how to do it better the second time around.Warren Richey’s memoir Without a Paddle is a remarkable physical and emotional journey that cuts to the heart of what it means to be a man, a husband, and a father.

    Setting out from Tahiti, they took the logical route because it was the fastest, taking them through the Roaring Forties, through the high latitudes of never ceasing gale-force winds and through iceberg territory. Their survival was due to careful preparation, great seamanship and their sense of harmony with their boat, Joshua, and the sea.

    This is an adventure story about a voyage from one life chapter to another that involves a too-big sailboat, a narrow and unknown sea, and an appetite to witness a mythical blonde bear that inhabits a remote rainforest.Kim Brown Seely and her husband had been damn good parents for more than 20 years. That was coming to an end as their youngest son was about to move across the country. The economy was in freefall and their jobs stagnant, so they impulsively decided to buy a big broken sailboat, learn how to sail it, and head up through the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to an expanse of untamed wilderness in search of the elusive blonde Kermode bear that only lives in a secluded Northwest forest. Theirs was a voyage of discovery into who they were as individuals and as a couple at an axial moment in their lives. Wise and lyrical, this heartfelt memoir unfolds amid the stunningly wild archipelago on the far edge of the continent.

    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.

    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

    In his memoir of a fishing trip through the Alaskan wilderness, Lou Ureneck brings to life the struggle to reclaim the trust of his teenage son, Adam, following his divorce. Told against the backdrop of the Alaskan wilds, "Backcast" is the remembrance of a fishing trip that carried a father and son from the mountains of Alaska to the Bering Sea. Along the way, nature transforms from friend into foe, and their struggles are played out against the poignant emotional battle raging between the two as they descend the river headed toward confrontation. On their journey, the two encounter nature's dangers -- bears, violent river currents and ruthless, punishing weather -- as well as the hurts that exist between them, the reasons for divorce, the absence of a father and the withheld love of a son. Dipping his hand into the river of his own life, Ureneck recounts his own fatherless childhood, the influence of his mother's boyfriend who helped him learn to fish, and the realization that he himself had done the one thing he always promised himself he would not do: He ended his marriage in divorce. Part adventure story, part reconciliation with life's unexpected turns, and part commentary on the healing power of nature, "Backcast" explores the world of a man confronted by the hard choices divorce can bring to create a moving meditation on fatherhood.

    Alone at sea for 310 days on his 37-foot cutter EGREGIOUS, he covered 38,000 miles in five difficult passages. He became the first American to round Cape Horn alone, complete one of the longest solo passages of all time, and make the fastest solo circumnavigation ever in a monohull.He writes at the outset: 'I will know defeat, despair, fear, beauty, serenity and peace. I will be tested far beyond anything I have ever imagined.' And tested he was--by storms, three capsizes, hurricane force winds, cyclones, week-long calms, sleet, snow, frostbite. He endured to experience exhilaration and accomplishment in solitude , and the peace of being in supreme harmony with the sea-world around him."STORM PASSAGE is about the first of legendary writer/sailor Webb Chiles' now five circumnavigations, all made without sponsorship, shore teams, PR agents, or any means of calling for help. Many talk loosely about living on the edge. Webb Chiles has for decades.

    In his quest for the means to liberate his boat, he takes any work he can get.

    Pedalling along curvaceous country lanes or freewheeling through valleys and vineyards – earning your supper in this sleepy corner of France is nothing short of a privilege.Tony and Ludmilla have landed a job with a specialist cycling and walking holiday company in the South of France … but that’s not something we can hold against them for too long!They head off to the mediaeval marvel of Cordes-sur-Ciel in the Tarn – a region so achingly beautiful and laden with history and mystery they have to pinch themselves to be sure such a place really does exist.When their cyclists turn up for a week’s pedal-powered adventure they will need a reliable back-up service when they puncture a tyre or come face to jowl with a ‘devil dog’ intent on devouring their panniers. And when their walkers take the wrong trail and find themselves humming Bonnie Tyler’s ’70s hit ‘Lost in France’, they too will need a timely rescue. Well, that’s the theory …

    Eager to reach his destination and unable to secure any other form of transport, he had to resort to singlehanded seamanship. After an ignominious scene in the harbor, where a tangled anchor led him to take an early dip, he spent ten days learning the rudiments of navigation and sailing from a book, before embarking on the 9,000 mile journey aboard the 20-foot Pagan. Ahead lay a mission that was to reveal in him elements not only of astounding courage and determination, but also of incredible foolhardiness. Within 500 miles of Panama John Caldwell had already been shipwrecked once and had his boat's engine and cockpit destroyed by an angry shark. Indefatigable, he decided to press on towards his goal.He endured the terrors and discomforts of life on the high seas and enjoyed the triumphs of fighting and winning against the elements. This is more than an exciting tale of sea-adventure. It is as compelling and unpredictable as a thriller. It is the story, witty and moving, of a man, motivated initially by love, and ultimately by his own fierce determination to survive.

    The lifers - as in "caddies for life" - that plied the loops were an ensemble of misfits and degenerates that made the caddy yard look more like an OTB parlor than anything near a country club.  But Dunn came of age in those yards and on those courses, and after an eye-opening experience caddying in Aspen during college the magnetism of the game and the lifestyle proved irresistible. One adventure after another kept him coming back summer after summer, until - out of college - he found himself migrating with the seasons, looping at some of the most exquisite and exclusive golf locations in the world; Sherwood, Augusta, Bandon Dunes, Shinnecock, and St. Andrews to name a few. Dunn criss-crossed the country on his own big loop; working inside the privet hedges while camping on the mountains; following the back roads and stumbling across unexpected moments of profound natural beauty; embracing the freedom of what he calls the last vagabond existence in America, all while trying to decide whether to quit the loop and get a real job. Maybe next season...

     You'll love seeing Kim and a fellow ranger tested as they bravely take on the task of relocating 77 live skunks by sedating them with darts from homemade blowguns, especially when the pickup truck load of stinkers wakes up while still in transit. An hilarious, heartwarming, and heartbreaking memoir by the chief wildlife ranger in the #1 most popular family vacation destination in the USA, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. For over thirty years, Kim DeLozier acted as a referee in the wild, trying to protect millions of park visitors from one of the densest populations of wild black bears in America -- and the bears from tourists who get too close. Written with bestselling author Carolyn Jourdan who has several highly-regarded #1 Amazon bestsellers about the Smoky Mountains.

    The joys and travails of building a home in Baja California.