Book Review: Always a Distant Anchorage - Hal Roth

Since I launched into this undertaking two years ago, the two cruising writers I heard most frequently mentioned were Eric Hiscock and Hal Roth. I have a set of Hiscock's books on the night table and expect to get at them this winter and I just finished my first Hal Roth book last week. Always a Distant Anchorage is the retelling of Hal's and his wife Margaret's circumnavigation from Maine, through the Panama and Suez canals onboard their yacht Whisper.

I have read a couple dozen books about people's sailing adventures. More than any other genre, it seems that sailing a long distance inspires even the most pedestrian of writers to put pen to paper (digit to digital input interface?) and tell their tale sailing. Of those, Hal stands out as a guy with the most solid of writing skills.

This guy can tell a story. I was riveted from start to finish, even taking the book along with me to work, which I don't often do. It was easy to pick up and read for a short bit, or again for longer stretches and it was loaded with both a mix of immediate and interesting adventures, reflection on the lifestyle and experiences, and background on the places and people they encountered.

This particular book also offers a nice blend of sublime moments in beautiful oceanside settings and adrenalin-inducing moments of risk and uncertain outcome, as when Hal and Margaret run up on a reef that their chart mistakenly mis-mapped.

Two thumbs up, highly recommend! Kris is reading it now.

Voyaging the Pacific - Miles Hordern

Just finished this one and found myself stringing it out, the last third. I was enjoying the location, maybe more than the writing. Although, I found it well written. Miles is a pom living in New Zealand and he embarks on a trip across the Southern Ocean, which is a large part of the book. He talks a lot about the expanse of ocean, the history of it, and more, while also doing a good job of putting you right in the cockpit and the cabin of his single-handed 28-footer.

He eventually runs into the South American continent and winds up helping on a mapping effort in the many islands, sounds, and waterways of the Chilean coast. He manages to evoke the place in a way that again puts you right there with him.

Eventually, Miles bears off to the North and then picks up the Trades and heads west. I found it quite interesting how many places he sailed right past; in the spirit of Moitessier, Mr. Hordern seemed happier to slip on past and keep to see.

My first experience of the Gambier Islands was through his writing here.

I found the bibliography to be a treasure trove of titles that I expect to tackle soon. There appear to be a couple editions of this out there, one of which has a variation on this title.

Book Review: Rounding the Horn

Loved it! Absolutely.

Dallas Murphy's Round the Horn is a wonderful mix of travelogue, exploration, sailing, geography, history, sociology, meteorology, and some cooking. His subtitle says most of it: Being a story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Savages--A deck's eye view of Cape Horn.

I found it to be a fantastic read; couldn't wait to pick it up and dive back in, wherever I was. Murphy did his research on this one and presents us with great collection of insights into the place and the human events that took place there over the past 500 years. Read this one and you'll have the best possible insight into the mysteries of Tierra del Fuego and the struggles to master the winds and seas throughout the past couple of centuries.

I give it my top rating, whatever that is. Some stars? A handful! Some thumbs? Another handful.

Read it.

Book Review: We the Navigators - The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific

I'm about halfway through this one and enjoying it immensely, although I don't know that I would recommend it to most. David Lewis is the author, and he turns out to be quite a prolific writer, mostly covering things Polynesian.

Born on some island off the coast of France, Mr. Lewis was raised in New Zealand and Rarotonga, where he attended a Polynesian school. He later studied to become a doctor and after many years practicing medicine, including some involvement of the establishment of the British National Health Service, he set off to circumnavigate the world in a sailboat and then into a second career as a sailor. He built his own catamaran and completed the first recorded circumnav of the world in a multihull.

Maybe you all know these things, but he's new to me and most interesting for his disciplined study of Polynesian navigation methods. I was fascinated by the concept of navigating without instruments and have always wanted to know more about how the Pacific Islanders moved about and established themselves in such an enormous expanse of open ocean with no modern navigation tools.

This book does an excellent job (so far) of detailing how the indigenous sailors of the Pacific use only the things they can see to determine where to find land.

With tribal knowledge passed on through rote learning, the subjects of Dr. Lewis's study seem to be able to establish their location by stars and sun position and then maintain course through periods of cloud cover by orienting themselves to the running ocean swells. Coupled with the detailed drawings and explanations of the primitive sailing vessels they piloted, the scientific research approach to understanding the navigation methods is turning into quite a page-turner for me.

If my life was not so much on the go these days, I'd love to write more of these reviews. I've got a stack of about twenty books lined up to read, many of a similar sort as this one. And I've got another twenty that I've read in the past nine months that have mostly been recaps of sailors trips around the world.

Thanks T-man.

Addendum: Some Older Reviews
A Family Cruise
A Family Cruise Gone Horribly Awry - NOT a light read

Book Review: The Water in Between

By Kevin Patterson.

A canuck doctor, carrying a heavy load of Northern Prairie ennui, and pining over a couple of lost love affairs, takes to sea in hopes of finding something in Tahiti. What's the something? He's not sure, but he spends a lot of time reading and thinking about the traveling he's doing.

I enjoyed it and got caught up in the narrative, as well as the dialogue he has with the books he reads along the way. His outward trip is undertaken with a guy he meets at the docks, a guy in a similar mopey-pining mood.

The other characters present for most of the trip are Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux. Patterson does a good job of mixing in his understanding of these guys and their writings, while contemplating his own desire to be out on this journey.

He's frank about his inexpert boathandling and some of the problems that arise from his mistakes. He also does a good job of putting you out there in the horse latitudes, as he and Don drift in the daily langour of the Pacific High.

Well-written and a good read if you like the long passages of other's work included with the descriptions of the people he meets along the way and the adventures they experience.

Interestingly, they end up going the hard way. Boat problems force them to head to Hawaii and they they have to beat back to the Cooks and Tahiti. Patterson returns to Canada to make some more money.

When he returns, he has brought a couple of recruits and they all sail the boat back to Hawaii together, where Patterson ends up alone, as the others must return to jobs. He singlehands back to B.C.