Sailing Travel

Erik Weihenmayer is the first and only blind person to summit Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Descending carefully, he and his team picked their way across deep crevasses and through the deadly Khumbu Icefall; when the mountain was finally behind him, Erik knew he was going to live. His expedition leader slapped him on the back and said something that would affect the course of Erik’s life: “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do.” No Barriers is Erik’s response to that challenge.

This is the story of a four-day breakneck journey by air, land and finally by sea from Peninsula Papagayo in northern Costa Rica to the port city of Golfito on the Panamanian border in southern Costa Rica…and back. The mission is to retrieve a sport-fishing boat shipped on the deck of a giant yacht transport from the Jersey Shore through the Panama Canal to Golfito. To retrieve the boat, the owner’s designated representative would have to possess an American passport and would have to appear in Glofito at precisely 2:30 p.m. on the appointed day to pay fees and sign customs documents. ...

The Tsangpo Gorge in southeastern Tibet has lured explorers and adventurers since its discovery. Sacred to the Buddhists, the inspiration for Shangri La, the Gorge is as steeped in legend and mystery as any spot on earth. As a river-running challenge, the remote Tsangpo is relentlessly unforgiving, more difficult than any stretch of river ever attempted. Its mysteries have withstood a century's worth of determined efforts to explore its length. The finest expedition paddlers on earth have tried.

The 5,000+ mile route of the Loop Cruise follows historic seaport towns, natural wilderness and coastal fishing communities on a navigable protected waterway that make it an adventure of a lifetime for boaters who dream of seeing the United States and Canada from the helm of their own boat. We were lucky enough to make this journey on our 36-foot trawler, High Life, and chronicled our voyage.

A Serial Killer, Sex Traffickers, and Mercenaries in the Caribbean A serial killer is roaming from Florida to the Eastern Caribbean. His victims are women who hitchhike on his sailing yacht. Picking up Dani Berger was his first mistake. After he leaves her for dead, Dani is found by human traffickers, who have their own plans for her. Hitchhiking on sailing yachts in the islands is dangerous, but not as dangerous as the people sent to rescue Dani. J.-P. Berger, her father, is a French arms dealer from Martinique. Two of his friends leave a trail of mayhem in their wake as they track down ...

At middle age, Herb and Nancy Payson decided they needed a change. Why not give up life on shore, quit their jobs in the smoky nightclubs of Los Angeles, and take up the cruising life? In Sea Foam, their 36-foot ketch, the Paysons and their large brood of teenage children cruised the Pacific for six and a half years. They experienced a certain amount of stark terror, but their delights far outbalanced the drawbacks. This special 35th anniversary edition is enhanced with a foreword by Lin Pardey, plus Herb's reflections on how cruising affected his children and his relationship with his determined, lifelong partner/wife Nancy.

Alone aboard "Acrohc", the tiny yacht he designed and built, Serge Testa sailed around the world and into the Guinness Book of Records. Exotic landfalls, cyclones, encounters with whales and a nearly fatal fire at sea make this a gripping story. Told with understatement and humor, this account of a unique voyage of discovery and endurance appeals to the adventurer in all of us.

After 7 years spent visiting the world aboard a sailing catamaran, this couple of seasoned travelers is going to switch to another mode of travel by moving to a motor catamaran! This is a radical choice that is still not very common, but its relevance is widely argued. This book evokes, in a colorful and slightly humorous way, one of the possible ways to transform a production boat into a real "trawler". By making a few small changes, we can make a real good sea boat with a transatlantic autonomy thanks to a very low consumption. And above all, by installing a consequent solar park, long ...

Here, for the first time, is a complete and chronological account: everything from levitating the dog and navigating by smell to meeting his wife Tamsin through the Lonely Hearts column of Time Out and attempting to run away to sea and raise a family on a 27 foot boat.

A holiday. A voyage. A pilgrimage. In Sailing Back with Mnemosyne, Gary Troia invites readers aboard the Sky Princess for a seven-night cruise through Europe’s Atlantic ports—from Southampton to A Coruña, Bilbao, Bordeaux, and Cherbourg. But this is no ordinary travel diary. It is a contemplative, often tender meditation on movement—geographical, emotional, and spiritual. With his wife Marina and young daughter Aemelia (and Moshy, the beloved monkey-bear) by his side, Troia revisits not only places but memories and situations, both inner and outer, to measure how things have changed....

Stuart Woods had never owned more than a dinghy before setting out on one of the world's most demanding sea voyages, navigating single-handedly across the Atlantic. How, at the age of 37, did this self-proclaimed novice go from small ponds to the big sea? Now with a new afterword that looks back at how one transatlantic race changed his life, Woods takes listeners on a spectacular journey not just of traveling across the world, but of being tried in fire, learning by accepting challenges, appreciating the beauty of the open water, and living to tell about it.

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that 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 nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

After nearly drowning in Greece, Christine Stovell was determined never to get on a boat again. The sailing kind? Definitely not. Yet when she married a keen sailor and became joint owner of a vintage wooden yacht, she somehow managed to sail halfway round Britain, despite never finding her sea legs. Insightful, funny and raw, Christine’s story captures the joy, terror and wonder of a novice, seasick sailor out on the waves in a small wooden boat. Her adventures have taken her through sleepy backwaters and high seas, from Essex to west Wales and across to France. Along the way, she’s ...

It's my best friend's wedding, and I'm miserable. First, the bride chose Violet to be her maid of honor. Violet, who was never anything but mean to me in school. But somehow they've become friends, and I, the woman who's always been there for the bride, am relegated to a mere bridesmaid position. When I overhear Violet trashing me, I escape to go for a walk. And that walk takes me to a bar, where I meet the hottest guy I've ever seen. This Navy SEAL introduces me to my first alcoholic beverage. Soon after, I'm thinking about what else I can try with him. Romance sets sail this October when ...

In 1958, while flying from one island to another, Audrey Sutherland sees the remote and roadless northeast side of Molokai, with its spectacular sea cliffs and waterfalls. Always an adventurer, she decides that she must find a way to explore this then inaccessible area. After much study, she determines that the best way for her to navigate these treacherous sea walls is to swim while towing an inflatable kayak. This is the story of fulfilling her dream, of planning then implementing, of launching and advancing, of retreating and reconnoitering, of challenge and success.

Bound for Distant Seas begins sailing author James Baldwin's epic tale of his second circumnavigation. His story is seasoned by his adventures during his first circumnavigation in 1984-86 as told in Across Islands and Oceans. Alone with little money aboard Atom, his now-engineless 28-foot sailboat, James embarks on his odyssey without the comforts and equipment most sailors consider essential.

Imagine spending 24 hours a day with your spouse in 31 not-so-square feet for years, crossing the Pacific Ocean on two gallons of fuel, and tossing spaghetti marinara around your living room then cleaning it up while bouncing like ice in a martini shaker. Tightwads on the Loose tells the story of Wendy and Garth, lured to sea by the promise of adventure. They buy a 31-foot boat that fits their budget better than it fits Garth's large frame and set sail on an open-ended voyage, never imagining they'd be gone seven years or cover 34,000 miles at the pace of a fast walk.

Do you have a dream you must pursue, but everyone says it's unrealistic? Or that you're not qualified? Too old, too out of shape? Or you don't have the "right experience?" Glenn Damato was a 41-year-old software instructor who sought to exceed the bounds of his comfortable but humdrum existence. He embarked on an adventure for which he was miserably unprepared. Why did he do this? How did he answer the ancient human question: how do we jump-start growth in our lives? We become something we were not.

Unrelenting winds, carnivorous polar bears, snake nests, sweltering heat, and constant hunger. Paddling from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay, following the 2,000-mile route made famous by Eric Sevareid in his 1935 classic Canoeing with the Cree, Natalie Warren and Ann Raiho faced unexpected trials, some harrowing, some simply odd. Warren's spellbinding account retraces the women's journey from inspiration to Arctic waters, giving listeners an insider view of planning a three-month canoe expedition to the successful accomplishment of the adventure of a lifetime.

Two Years Before the Mast, written by Richard Henry Dana, provides a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea". Dana sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, stopping in several ports along the California coast including San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. On the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter Dana describes terrifying storms and incredible beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs and the scurvy that afflicts members of the crew.