It's been a while since I've stayed up late to finish a book, but I did it last night. Naya was in the crook of my arm as I was reading about the trans-Atlantic leg of Tania and Tarzoon (her cat) in "Maiden Voyage". This book is a classic that I've known about for years and years and that I've avoided reading until now, not wanting to catch the circumnavigation bug. It describes Tania Aebi's circumnavigation at ages 18-21 in the 80s, on a Contessa 26, a boat most people would now consider woefully undersized for the job. After I got my boat, people would always ask, "Oh, just like Aebi, have you read her book?" But of course I wasn't about to go on a circumnavigation ... not on Shadow Line.
The book does a good job of capturing the crankiness and fearfulness of the 18-year old as she departs New York, and her transformation as she proceeds westward around the world. I'm not sure I'm going to read it again anytime soon, nor that it will become a favorite for me as "the voyage of the Aquarius" did, but I really enjoyed it this first time around. I read it at home and on the bus, and for the last two chapters, I stayed up late with my very own boat cat and finished it off. I should mention that this very moment Nick Jaffey is doing a trans-pacific voyage on the very same type of boat, after having crossed the Atlantic from Germany, and shipped the boat overland in the US.
No comments:
Post a Comment