Sea Water

Once an essential skill, the ability to build a clinker boat, first innovated by the Vikings, can seem incomprehensible today. Yet it was the clinker that afforded us access to the oceans, and its construction has become a lost art that calls to the do-it-yourselfer in all of us. John Gornall heard the call. A thoroughly unskilled modern man, Gornall set out to build a traditional wooden boat as a gift for his newborn daughter. It was, he recognized, a ridiculously quixotic challenge for a man who knew little about woodworking and even less about boat building.

In the middle of dead calm seas, Chase witnesses a plane crash. The lone survivor is soon targeted by dangerous foes. Can Chase keep her safe long enough to find who is trying to kill her?

Young and in love, their lives ahead of them, Tami Oldham and her fiancé, Richard Sharp, set sail from Tahiti under brilliant blue skies, with Tami’s hometown of San Diego as their ultimate destination. But the two free spirits and avid sailors couldn’t anticipate that less than two weeks into their voyage, they would sail directly into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history.

Patrick Dixon spent years working as a doctor at University College Hospital, while his wife, Sheila, was a magistrate - high-pressure careers that demanded long hours away from their home, family and passion for sailing. It is a frustrating story many occasional sailors can relate to, but unlike most, Patrick and Sheila realised early enough that they could only bend so far before something snapped; they could only take on so much before they drowned.

LIKE WATER LIKE SEA is an immersive novel of self-discovery, resilience, and the unifying power of love. It follows the life of Nia, a queer, bi/pansexual naturopath in London, as her life unfolds across three pivotal moments, spanning from her 28th year to a life-altering realization at the age of 50.

The sea has always been a part of Nuala Moore’s life – her earliest memory is of jumping off her father’s trawler in Dingle harbour and swimming back to shore. She’s swam in some of the most dangerous and remote waters in the world. But her burgeoning career stalled when she became the sole carer of her ailing father; she couldn’t commit to training, and she struggled with a lack of direction. That’s when she found ice swimming – swims that take up less time, but which are far more demanding, physically and mentally. Nuala’s philosophy is that we are all capable of greatness.

Admiral Stavridis, a leader in military, international affairs, and national security circles, shares his love of the sea and some of the sources of that affection. The Sailor's Bookshelf offers synopses of fifty books that illustrate the history, importance, lore, and lifestyle of the oceans and of those who "go down to the sea in ships." Divided into four main categories, Admiral Stavridis's choices will appeal to "old salts" and to those who have never known the sights of the ever-changing seascape, nor breathed the tonic of an ocean breeze.

Fed up with teenage life in the suburbs, Jaimal Yogis ran off to Hawaii with little more than a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and enough cash for a surfboard. His journey is a coming-of-age saga that takes him from communes to monasteries, from the warm Pacific to the icy New York shore. Equal parts spiritual memoir and surfer's tale, this is a chronicle of finding meditative focus in the barrel of a wave and eternal truth in the great, salty blue.

A powerful feminist nature writing by the pioneer of women's big wave surfing in Ireland. Easkey Britton provides a rare female perspective on surfing, exploring the mental skills it fosters and the need to recognize the value of the ocean and of nature's cycles in our lives. This is an incredibly inspiring exploration of the sea's role in the wellness of people and the planet, beautifully written by Easkey Britton - surfer, scientist, and social activist. For Easkey, the sea is a source of mental and physical well-being.

Before a prophecy swept him across the seas, Oskar Dahlin was a mortal among corrupt rulers. He lived with one mandate: protect the innocent. Be their sword, and if necessary, their vengeance. He was a Blade of the Assassin’s Guild, trained in body and mind. What the royals did behind their high walls was not his concern unless and until their actions spilled into his streets. Or a young queen steals his heart.

This is a story set in war-torn Okinawa - back in the final days of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The story is told from the point of view of a young Kamikaze pilot preparing to fly his fighter plane into the side of an American battleship. It is a story of guilt, loneliness, memory, and the taste of the sea. Oh, and there's a sea monster as well. I expect I ought to mention that...

A short story from James Lee Burke's story collection, Jesus Out to Sea. Burke is one of the country's most acclaimed and popular novelists.

Home from Distant Seas completes the trilogy of books by James Baldwin recounting his 25 years of live-aboard cruising adventures. The author creates a tribute to the sea and to those who venture upon her in small voyaging sailboats as he describes his personal journey of survival and discovery at sea as well as the sailors and local people he met along the way. Continuing here with the memoir of his second adventurous circumnavigation begun in his earlier books Bound for Distant Seas and The Next Distant Sea.

Over 70 percent of Earth is covered in water, yet over 80 percent of that water remains unexplored. There are currently over 10 billion people on Earth, but terrestrial humans are only aware of those who live on land. The other three billion humans took a decidedly different evolutionary path, adapting to live in the largest combined area on the planet–the water.

A wonderful book for all ages that like magical adventures sailing the high seas with witches and wizards and mythical creatures as shipmates! A dramatic dystopian fantasy about a living ship who escapes a locked down quarantined port during the black plague to make her way to a great ship graveyard far north where she will transition to a different spiritual plane. The problem is, the whole world wants her dying timbers, and it seems they will stop at nothing to get them, dead or alive!

Introducing Saumitra's poetry to an English-relishing audience is like reliving its flavor a few years ago in Hindi when these very poems caught the print eye of an eminent publisher, Bharatiya Gyanpith. Saumitra’s selection was not only published from there but also bestowed the Navlekhan Award, and these poems have been expertly translated by Dhiraj Singh, who gives a Midas touch of his pen when moving from one language from another.

A collection of thrilling diving stories.There's everything from classic tales of wreck discoveries to encounters with beautiful and bizarre creatures beneath the waves. There are stories of death and disaster as well as bravery and triumph. Each tale has been chosen to stoke the fire of divers everywhere and some are illustrated with colour photographs.Take the plunge and read about the diver who discovered how to put sharks in a trance and the marine biologist who lost a limb trying to prove that sharks were safe to swim with.

Big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara set the world record for the sport, surfing a 78-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal, in 2011, a record he smashed two years later at the same break. Propelled by the challenge and promise of bigger, more difficult waves, this adrenaline-fueled loner and polarizing figure travels the globe to ride the most dangerous swells the oceans have to offer, from calving glaciers to hurricane swells. But what motivates McNamara to go to such extremes - to risk everything for one thrilling ride?

Forced toward an arranged marriage, the chosen braenese has a new enemy, and he's not at all like the boy who washed ashore in Elowa. This one hates her before she even sets foot upon his sand. To survive, Zaria must learn the ways of this new world and fight alongside it's people. She’ll need to gather as many assets as she can to help her escape back to Kirwyn. Did he find his boat that fateful night...or did he meet his doom at the bottom of the ocean?

One man’s challenge to compete in a yacht race around the world, as much against the natural elements as his fellow competitors... The 2018 Golden Globe Race marked the 50th anniversary of the Sunday-Times-sponsored solo circumnavigation and proved to be every bit of a boat and mind-breaking event as the first.