Discusses the type of vessel decided upon and why. Negotiations with yacht builders. Navigation techniques, How to make money to stay afloat. Trans Atlantic passage planning. People we met along the way. Security measures

298 photos! Missives from MARAVIDA: A Family’s Caribbean Sailing Adventure documents the extraordinary journey I took with my husband and our two children. Our adventure is chronicled in the e-mail messages I sent to family and friends after we met up with MARAVIDA in Trinidad. It is supplemented with pictures, general information about the locations we visited, and web links. I’ve done my best to preserve the small details of our life, which might prove useful for those who would like to ...

Les Powles only had 8 hours of sailing experience when he decided to sail solo around the world. Many novices would be content to just dream of such an adventure, and maybe get as far as a solo Channel crossing a couple of years down the line. Not so Les Powles, one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary and eccentric sailors.Les was in his 50s when he built himself a yacht with little prior knowledge of boatbuilding. Remarkably he made it across the Atlantic, though his nav...

This is the story of one couples adventures living and traveling aboard their 47-foot cruiser, "Farfetched". It starts with their getting hooked on boating and traveling by water, many years earlier. It tells how they made their decision to really make this move and of their search for the right boat.In 1997 they sold their home and all of their possessions to became full time live aboard boaters. During that eight-year odyssey, they traveled over 32,000 miles and visited e...

The Cruising Life: A Commonsense Guide for the Would-Be Voyager, Jim Trefethen. The funniest, drollest, wisest book on the shelf for the would-be cruiser. Trefethen pulls no punchesÑhe tells you just what will be involved if you and your family decide to "let slip the surly bonds of earth" and set sail. How to get ready, how to finance the voyage, how to live on your boat with maximum peace of mind and minimum hassle, and what equipment you do and don't need. (What you don't need may surpr...

Have you ever dreamt of cashing in your chips and escaping to a tropical paradise? Faced with an imminent divorce, this non-fiction novel chronicles how Jimmy Lassiter does just that, taking the reader through liquidating the marital assets, purchasing a yacht, and sailing 'Down to the Tropical Sun'. Along the way he will experience two hurricanes, fall in love again, and embark on a new career delivering yachts.

Somewhere between the Galapagos Islands en route to the Marqesas Group in the darkest of nights, at approximately six degrees south of the equator a sailboat is whispering along under full sail. The fresh south east trades are pushing her sleek hull through the coal black water at around eight knots. The man standing at the wheel, wearing ragged shorts only in the warm tropical breeze gently fanning him over the port quarter, helms his craft by starlight alone. All lights have been doused ...

The Reluctant Mariner tells of an Australian couple's five-year circumnavigation of the world in a 12.2-metre long, steel-hulled ketch called Onawa. The author, Joanna Hackett, was once a self-proclaimed landlubber who had never even considered sailing off over the horizon in search of adventure but, having married a man keen to do just that, was willing to "give it a go". Her candid account, penned with dry wit and accessible style, made The Reluctant Mariner a sell-out when it first hit ...

Some people dream of radically changing their life-styles and never do. Eric Mold and his family did. They sold up their worldly possessions, bought a boat with the money and set out for a life on the high seas.From the decision as to what type of boat to have, to the problem of making money to stay afloat, this book chronicles the pitfalls and pleasures which beset this adventurous family. Their experiences both ashore and on board Superstar are frankly described. Interesting enco...

In 2003, casting their fortunesand their livesto the wind, the Ellison family embarked on what they thought would be a one-year voyage on their forty-seven-foot sloop, Promise. Five years and more than 25,000 nautical miles later, the family of four returned to the United States and dry land.In this memoir, author Alex Ellison chronicles his familys adventures on the seas. Culled from a detailed daily journal that Ellison began keeping at the onset of the ...

Sailing with Impunity covers a 14-month, 13,000-mile adventure with Mary and Bruce Trimble from Seattle to legendary South Pacific Islands and home again. From magical sights and scents of their first tropical island landfall to the bustling, colorful Tahitian markets. From sudden midnight squalls and weathering a cyclone in Samoa to pristine anchorages in the Kingdom of Tonga. The memoir frankly discusses the hardships and joys of offshore cruising with only two people aboard their 40-foo...

Tells of a sailing journey from San Diego to Australia in a 40 foot sailing boat. Covers Mexico, French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Tonga and Fiji. Also has a chapter on various events "that were too much fun," for the crew. Includes useful detail on various formalities required in the respective ports of call. Chapters on each of the destinations mentioned above and a final chapter on comical (in hindsight) misadventures the crew experienced. Features a fun and farcical quiz to test a reader...