Sailing by Starlight

This arrived last night! 

In two weeks, Rod's latest book will be released! I am so proud of him, and very excited about this new book, which is available for pre-order here and here.

Publisher's Blurb:

Sailing by Starlight is the story of the adventure of a lifetime—in fact, of many lifetimes. In the early 1980s, retired geography professor Marvin Creamer set out to do what hadn’t been done for a thousand years—if indeed it had ever been done at all: Marv and his crew boarded a 35’ sailboat named Globe Star and set out into the frigid Atlantic, planning to sail around the world without the use of any instruments. There was no sextant aboard. No compass. No chart-plotter. No GPS. No radar. Not even a stopwatch. Creamer wanted to prove to the world that it was possible for ancient mariners to have crossed the largest seas, perhaps even sailed around the world, using only their brains, their experience, their sense, and their courage. In attempting to prove his point, Creamer would push his boat and his crew to the limit—and occasionally beyond.

Travel with Creamer as Globe Star sails around the perilous Horn, across the dangerous and tumultuous Tasman Sea, and into an active war zone. Sail around the world with a man who was taken prisoner by an idea, a man obsessed with proving a point, and who would let neither 40-foot waves nor fractious crewmembers deter him.

The Narrowboat Summer

 

The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson

Original Title: Three Women and a Boat

Fiction

2020 Flatiron Books

Finished on July 1, 2022

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the author of Meet Me at the Museum, a charming novel of second chances, about three women, one dog, and the narrowboat that brings them together.

Eve expected Sally to come festooned with suitcases and overnight bags packed with everything she owned, but she was wrong. She arrived on foot, with a rucksack and a carrier bag. “I just walked away,” she said, climbing on to the boat. Eve knew what she meant.

Meet Eve, who has left her thirty-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia, a defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller, who is suddenly landlocked and vulnerable.

Before they quite know what they’ve done, Sally and Eve agree to drive Anastasia’s narrowboat on a journey through the canals of England, as she awaits a life-saving operation. As they glide gently – and not so gently – through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of narrowboat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds. At summer’s end, all three women must decide whether to return to the lives they left behind, or forge a new path forward.

Candid, hilarious, and uplifting, The Narrowboat Summer is a novel of second chances, celebrating the power of friendship and new experience to change one’s life, at any age.

I have always loved being on or near the water, whether that be sailing on a lake, cruising on a river, or simply sitting by the ocean. My husband and I have cruised the San Juan Islands (on my dad and stepmom's boat), and I took a fabulous two-week cruise (on the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers) with my mom a few years ago. Each of these excursions involved traveling through locks, so I was interested to read Anne Youngson's novel, The Narrowboat Summer, which centers around two strangers (who become great friends) traveling the canals of England on a narrowboat. It took me a few chapters to get fully immersed in the story, but once I did, I couldn't put it down. I came to care about Eve and Sally, as well as Anastasia and her goofy dog Noah. With Youngson's attention to detail, I felt like I was on the journey with this motley crew.

On the towpath of a canal in a town not far from London, not far from the coast, is moored a narrowboat pained dark blue with the name Number One picked out in red lettering on the prow. It is tethered tightly to the bank with ropes made wet by the rain and slimy with age, wrapped around pegs bent out of shape by the misaimed blows of a lump hammer. It is still in the water. At either end the doors are fast shut and the windows along the side are latched. On the roof is a skylight, cantilevered up to let the fresh air into the cabin below. Puddles of water on the deck and roof show that it has been raining, but at this moment it is not. 

I had hoped for a happy ending, and I wasn't disappointed. If you're looking for a feel-good read (which is neither cloying nor sentimental), The Narrowboat Summer is just the ticket. I not only want to read it again, but I'm looking forward to trying Youngson's previous work, Meet Me at the Museum.

In addition to this uplifting story, I fell in love with the cover art illustration. You can find more information about the artist, Sarah Maycock, here and here. 

Eve drove the Number One through the first ten locks and Sally thought that, when she took over, there would be time to talk in the dripping gloom of an empty lock while that waited for it to fill up. This, however, proved impossible. It was necessary to keep the boat steady in the lock, avoid it drifting too far forward, where the nose could become trapped on a beam of the gate, or too far back, where the sill could foul the rudder, and the concentration needed, plus the noise, the engines and the roar of the water coming into the lock, meant that nothing could be said that needed consideration, until the last, calm moments as the lock filled right to the top, when the Grimm's crew swapped over. 

The following photos are from the Great Rivers of Europe Cruise. We traveled through 66 locks (many while we were sleeping) over the course of two weeks. 

Inside the lock

Gate closing

Water rising

These photos (below) are of the Ballard Locks in Seattle. The locks connect Puget Sound with Lake Union and Lake Washington.

Click here for more information about the operation of canal locks.

The Boys in the Boat

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Nonfiction - Nautical
2013 Penguin Audio
Read by Edward Herrmann
Finished on September 19, 2016
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and Unbroken, the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics

Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.

The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together—a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.

Drawing on the boys’ own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant. It will appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, James Bradley, and David Halberstam's The Amateurs.

This really should have been a 5-star book for me, what with the perfect ingredients of boats and the Pacific Northwest setting. I love being on and around the water and have spent a bit of time on Lake Union in Seattle. 10 years ago, I sat on the aft deck of my dad and stepmom's boat, watching several groups of rowers make their way back and forth across the lake. I was quite envious! I've never rowed in a scull, but I owned a kayak for a few years and enjoyed paddling around on a local lake. I've always thought rowing would be a great way to be out on the water, not to mention the great workout.

So when I first learned about Brown's book, I was intrigued. Hearing that the book reads like a novel made it even more appealing. I started out with the print edition, but couldn't get interested, so I moved on to the audio. I thought the book started off a little slow, but I stuck with it, hoping things would pick up as the Olympics drew closer. I was interested in the sections that dealt with Germany and the preparations for the Olympics, but otherwise, the details about the rowing and the boys' lives became tedious to listen to. Edward Hermann did a fine job with the narration, but I found my mind wandering and really had to force myself to pay attention. 

Final Thoughts:

It took me almost three weeks to listen to 14 1/2 hours of narration and I have to say, I was glad to be finished. It's certainly not a bad book, but it wasn't what I was expecting. I thought I was in the minority, but my husband (who loves everything nautical and preferably nonfiction) didn't even finish reading it, so I don't feel too badly for giving it such a low rating.

Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God

Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God by Joe Coomer
Fiction
1995 Scribner Paperback Fiction
Finished 8/31/11
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)




Publisher’s Blurb:

Nine weeks after losing her husband, Charlotte escapes to a wooden motor yacht in New Hampshire, where her shipmates are an aging blue-haired widow, an emotional seventeen-year-old, and the ugliest dog in literature. A genuine bond develops among the three women, as their distinct personalities and paths cross and converge against the backdrop of emotional secrets, abuse, and the wages of old age.

Off the boat, Charlotte, an archaeologist, joins a local excavation to uncover an ancient graveyard. Here she can indulge her passion for reconstructing the past, even as she tries to bury her own recent history. She comes to realize, however, that the currents of time are as fluid and persistent as the water that drifts beneath her comforting new home.

In keeping with my beach/summer reading theme (yes, this review is long overdue!), I pulled Coomer’s novel off one of my shelves and was immediately pulled into his engaging story of three independent women, living aboard a wooden boat named Rosinante in Portsmouth Harbor, New Hampshire. I’ve never lived on a boat, but as I read, I was filled with blissful memories of two incredible weeks when my husband and I cruised the San Juan Islands aboard my dad and stepmom’s wooden boat, The Lady Mick. The nautical terminology I learned that summer all came flooding back as I read, reminding me of the unique lifestyle one enjoys while living aboard.


I laid down on my bunk, little dry silent Piscataqua on my chest, and listened instead to what my life in that room would be like. It seemed as though I were lying upon another living being who was as mindful, as tense, as I was. The boat had been alive, of course, constructed as far as I could tell entirely of wood. It reacted to the slightest change in both the wind and water with movements I could feel in the same way I could tell when Jonah moved beside me in bed. There was a floating sensation, as if I were being rearranged or adjusted. When the tide ebbed Rosinante was pushed up against the dock, tubular PVC fenders protecting the hull, and held there with, I suppose, the force of several tons of pressure. When the tide flowed, the boat went taut on the lines stretching to the dock’s galvanized cleats. I could hear these lines creaking and the slow groan of the boat’s timbers, each fastener taking its turn to moan. Some form of friction was constant. The current sliding off the hull, perhaps four inches from my head, gurgled, shushed, and occasionally popped. As I lay there a small electric motor turned on somewhere beneath me, beneath the sole, and I heard a stream of water falling into the river outside the hull. It lasted for perhaps thirty seconds and the motor shut off. The boat had peed. It was silly, but it made me smile.

Ah, the bilge pump. A boat-owner’s best friend.

I believe my heart has always found peace when near any body of water. Those two weeks aboard The Lady Mick, as well as a week on the Oregon Coast, in Little Whale Cove, were incredibly healing for both me and my husband after tragedy struck our family several years ago. Time became elusive and routines vanished as we drifted about in our thoughts and memories, lulled to sleep by the slapping of the water against the hull or to the distant echo of waves crashing against the rocky shoreline.

Joe Coomer captures this state of mind so adroitly:

I came across a love of moving water, an ebbing tide parting on the plumb bow of an old boat, and the sea passing swiftly along the waterline carried bits of seaweed, the body of a dead bird, a dark brown leaf, and a love that seemed necessary to me, to be near that abrasive current, the green swell and nascent gurgle. I thought I’d never be able to love anything again, anything other than the memory of my husband, and so I felt ashamed and queer kneeling there on the dock, my bag over one shoulder and a kitten inside my coat, looking down into the water of Portsmouth Harbor, and feeling for a moment, not sad.


and

I’d left home, quit my job. I was the only person on the planet, outside of Grace, who knew where I was. It felt safe. I’d left at least some of my grief a thousand miles away. Another delusion, another pretty thought, shimmering above my head like the reflection of light off the water that entered through the windows of my snug cabin, my constantly shifting home.

There is something cozy, almost cocoon-like, about living on a boat:


It was almost dark by the time I stepped back aboard the old cruiser. A passing boat rolled over a wake that rocked Rosinante at her berth, and I had the same queer sensation that she was alive when my foot touched her deck, that I’d stepped on something that breathed. The windows of the salon were fogged, but a dim light still shone from within. Heat and a faint smoke issued from the stack over the galley and was blown upriver. I pushed down on the brass lever with my free hand, and let myself in as quietly as possible. The mahogany table in front of the settee was set with silver, china and crystal, cloth napkins. Above the table an oil lamp that I’d thought was merely decorative was burning.


This was my first encounter with Joe Coomer and it won’t be the last. His main characters are sharply drawn, a bit quirky, and completely likeable. The plot and dialogue are both refreshing and engaging and I was sorry to see this lyrical story come to an end. What a wonderful film this would make!

If I were to ever win the lottery, the first thing I’d do is buy a house along the Oregon or Washington coast. Of course, I’d happily share the wealth with my husband, so the second thing I’d do is take him shopping for a boat. What more could we possible need?