Boat Girl

Finished May 8

Boat Girl by Melanie Neale

This memoir grew on me as I got further into it. Melanie's story goes from her beginning to age 32, sometimes jumping a few years in the later sections. Her parents bought a new sailboat shortly before she was born, and she spent her youth growing up on the boat, travelling from her parent's home port in Virginia to Florida and from there to the Bahamas, usually on the smaller islands that make up the Exumas. Her father had worked as a lawyer prior to this, and used the money he earned there to buy the boat and fund the first few years of sailing. He began writing about their experiences and about sailing in more general ways and wrote both books and articles and continued to fund their life from these endeavours. 

I found her life interesting, from her parents' insistence on proper schooling using correspondence material from accredited schools, to encouraging her to learn practical skills that went along with owning a large sailboat and living on it. She dealt with some common teen issues such as finding friends and body image, and with her father's expectations around her relationships. 

I liked that she thought about what she really enjoyed doing and changed her major in college early to concentrate on that passion. 

Both informative and personally open, this memoir gives a realistic view of this way of life.  

Sea Wife

Finished June 28

Sea Wife by Amity Gaige

This fascinating novel reads like a memoir. The narrator is mostly Juliet Partlow, but sometimes her husband Michael through the pages of the ship's log he kept. The couple have a marriage that has become shaky. Michael doesn't enjoy his job anymore and finds himself dreaming about the years he spent on a sailboat with his father, who has since passed away. 

As the book starts Juliet is in a bad mental state, spending most of her time when the children aren't home sitting in her husband's closet. You know that something has happened, but not what exactly. 

As the story reaches back a few months to Michael talking Juliet into taking a leave from work, buying a sailboat, and sailing as a family, you see into his mind, and how he was unhappy with his life, but very much in love with his wife and afraid for his marriage. Their children are young, Sybil is seven and George is under three. Michael thinks Juliet is depressed and that the adventure would be good for her. Juliet is worried about failing in yet another area of life. But she finally agrees. 

As the voyage goes, we see Juliet gain confidence and the two grow closer. The kids are also confident and daring and learning so much. This is a story of hope, of renewal, and of rebuilding a relationship. Until the unthinkable happens. It tests Juliet in ways she doesn't think she's ready for, and now in the aftermath she finds herself depending on someone else again, in this case her mother. 

This is a book where I grew to love the characters, this family that was willing to try something that seemed crazy to others. Their personalities are shown through their behaviour as well as the adults thoughts. I had a hard time putting this one down. It was so good. 

Float Plan

Finished February 27 

Float Plan by Trish Doller

This is my second book about sailing this year! This one is fiction. The main character here is Anna, a mid-twenties woman who works as a waitress at a pirate-themed restaurant in Florida. Less than a year ago, her fiance died by suicide and she's been grieving. His parents kicked her out of their shared apartment, which she couldn't have afforded on her own anyway, and she moved back into her mom's house and shares a room with her sister and niece. 

On the morning this story begins, an alert lit up her phone, reminding her that this was the day they were due to leave on a planned sailing trip through the Caribbean. It triggers something in her and she decides to do it. She gathers her stuff, shops quickly for supplies, does a quick clean of the sailboat (which was left to her in his will) and leaves.

She doesn't give notice at her job, and she doesn't tell her mom until after she's gone. But that first day (and night) of sailing has her realizing that she isn't experienced enough or confident enough to do some of the parts of this trip on her own, so she advertises for an experienced crew member. 

The guy that applies, Keane, has his own issues, but he's an excellent sailor and not only does the job, but teaches her the skills that she will need to continue on her own as well. 

I liked how Anna used the trip and the things that she had planned to do along it with her fiance to work through her grief and think about what she wanted for herself. Most of the trip had been planned by him, with her just acquiescing to his choices, so this is enlightening for her to find that she enjoys some of his choices and not others. It teaches her to trust herself, to know her own value and capabilities and to really think about her future more instead of just working in a dead-end job. 

It also highlights the world of sailing, the friendliness and camaraderie that exists, how people give advice, and help each other. She finds new friends, some through Keane and some on her own. 

At the beginning of the book she thinks she can't live without her lost love and in the journey of this novel she finds that she can, that she doesn't need anyone else, but sometimes she definitely wants a partner to share things with. 

It is a romance, but there is depth here as well.   

Uncharted

Finished February 10

Uncharted: A Couple's Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing From One Life to Another by Kim Brown Seely

This memoir is told by a woman in her forties. In 2009, her husband convinced her that they should buy a sailboat that had been repossessed by a bank and was therefore a pretty good deal. They's talked about buying a sailboat, but this 54 foot Moody needed work and was in Rhode Island while they lived in Seattle, and thus would need to be moved across the country. They bought it and her husband Jeff, who had some sailing experience in his youth worked to get Kim and their two tween and teen sons competent sailors. While this book is about one specific sailing trip they took when their youngest left for college, it is also about the experience of having one's children move into adulthood by leaving, and about the way the relationship between a couple changes over time.

Partway through this particular trip, the couple's sons join them for a week, flying in to meet them by float plane. The whole family then docks the boat, locks it up and goes back home, with their older son heading back to his internship in San Francisco, and the couple flying east with their youngest to take him to college in northern New York State. 

There were definitely things that were foreign to me, besides sailing. I can't imagine my parents escorting me to university, or there being so much crying about me setting off on my own adult adventure, but maybe mine hid it well. I found the sailing well described, so that even a complete novice like me could understand, but not full of technical stuff that would bore the reader. 

It was the trip that fascinated me, leaving Seattle, and soon sailing into Canada, along the edge of Vancouver Island and the mainland, and up the Inside Passage to the Great Bear Rainforest. 

There are four pages of maps in the front of the book that show their journey, and they are better marked than other such books that I've read in terms of naming waterways and islands, but there were still a few that were named in the text, but not indicated on the maps. This is a pet peeve of mine. 

The journey was full of wonder at the nature and people that they encountered, and Seely really gave a sense of the feeling and ambience of the days. 

Also fun was that there was a lot of references to music, as they used an iPod for background, company, and mood. 

Seely is an award-winning journalist and the quality of the writing here shows that. I really enjoyed this book, and its setting was of great interest to me. 

The Skeleton Coast

Finished June 12
The Skeleton Coast by Mardi McConnochie

This is the third book in the series that started with The Flooded Earth. Set in a future time where the earth's waters have risen and humanity has grown more divided, Annalie and her brother Will have set sail to try to find their father Spinner, and are running from the Admiralty, a ruling group that controls much of their world. Along with them are Annalie's best friend Essie, and Pod, a homeless young boy that they found abandoned in the sea in the first book in the series. Also along is Graham, their father's intelligent and often very helpful parrot.
There are many adventures along their voyage from pirates to dog packs, and they must use all their skills and ingenuity to stay together and on their father's trail.
I liked the way that each child brought something to the quest, and that without all of them, they wouldn't be successful. None of them are perfect, but they recognize that and accept it.
This is a story that shows all the children having unique and necessary attributes and I liked that gender wasn't an issue. Bravery is shown by all at different times, as is weakness.
I liked some of the larger issues around fairness and diversity as well.

The Flooded Earth

Finished August 10
The Flooded Earth by Mardi McConnochie

This middle grade novel falls into the dystopian subset of climate fiction, fiction, known as clifi, that takes place after the world's climate has caused catastrophic changes. The main characters in the novel are Will and Annalie, twins, and the children of a man, Spinner, who had previously worked for the government trying to find solutions for problems facing the world's inhabitants.
As the book opens, it is forty years after a devastating flood that flooded entire countries, devastated coastal communities and had a huge economic effect. Many countries redefined themselves, opting not to repopulate some areas even after flood waters receded. Refugees found themselves in horrific camps, or living in the abandoned areas of the world.
Annalie was encouraged by her father to apply to the prestigious government boarding school in their country, Dux, and was accepted, but she feels like an outsider. She and Will were raised by their father in one of the abandoned areas and lived off the grid until now. During the flood the military took charge of the government and is still in charge. They are known as The Admiralty. When the authorities come unexpectedly for Spinner, he sends Will to a friend's place and goes for an escape. He doesn't make it to his boat, which The Admiralty has taken custody of, but he does disappear. And the authorities now come to Annalie, asking her questions about her father and making her feel unnerved. After talking to Will, she decides to leave school and go home to join Will and try to find their father. Her only school friend, Essie, daughter of a senior government official who has fallen to scandal, decides to come with her.
As the twins and Essie set off on a sea voyage after Skinner, along with Skinner's enhanced talking parrot, Graham, they are in for a big adventure. The must dodge the government officials that are trying to find them, avoid the pirate ships that prey on boats where they can, and try to decide who to trust as they follow their instincts and carefully choose ports to stop in for supplies. This is obviously the first in a series of books following the children, and I am dying to find out the next adventures for them. The author is well-known for both children's and adult fiction in Australia, and I am pleased to discover her.