Water Travel

Interwoven with legends and lore, this story chronicles one man's adventure on Lake Superior, one of the world's most dangerous bodies of water.

Thirteen-year-old Sam Every has traveled back in time to the Golden Age of Piracy to face Captain Slayer, master of the dark arts. Deceived into handing Slayer the ultimate weapon, the Sword of ZelKar, Sam has lost his hands, sliced off in his first clash with the evil pirate. But all is not lost. Sam’s friends have found their way back in time, and with the help of the pirate hunter Benjamin Hornigold have rescued him from the island where Slayer marooned him. Now, Sam must rise above his injuries and find the strength to again face Slayer before it is too late.

Tourists visit popular islands of the Caribbean by the planeload. What they don't see from their resort hotels are the hundreds of out-of-the-way, uninhabited islands sprinkled along the West Indies, from Florida to South America. This alluring archipelago, strung with beaches accessible only by boat but spaced temptingly close together, led Mississippi adventurer Scott B. Williams to embark upon an open-ended quest to see how far south he could go in a 17-foot sea kayak.

Proving that sailing is not just the husband's pursuit, this charming narrative of one couple's first long distance voyage is told from the wife's perspective. Writing in a lively, humorous way, Sandra Clayton gives an entertaining account of her and husband David's maiden cruise from the UK, down the Atlantic coast and into the warm waters of the Mediterranean. Conscious that old age or poor health could prevent them from sailing away for much longer, they left the world of work behind to chase their dream of adventure.

After exploring the Eastern Caribbean for several years on their 34-foot Creekmore, Connie McBride, her husband, and their 16-year-old son sailed away from their adopted home of St. Croix, west across the Caribbean to Bocas del Toro, Panama. What they found there will delight the reader as the archipelago comes alive in Eurisko Sails West: A Year in Panama. Howler monkeys, red frogs, and sloths in the jungle are accompanied by a symphony of parrots, oro pendula, toucans, and macaws.

Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth.

As a journalist for the Independent, Emma Bamford is swept along with the London rat race, lost amongst the egos of Fleet Street. Surrounded by budget cuts and bullies, the thrill of a breaking news story is no longer enough. And at 31, still struggling to get to a fourth date and surrounded by friends settling down to married life and babies, Emma decides to grasp her life by the roots and reclaim her freedom...by running away to sea and joining a complete stranger (and his cat) on a yacht in Borneo.

In the late 1990s, John Pollack was working as a Washington speechwriter when, frustrated by the cynicism and hypocrisy on Capitol Hill, he quit his job to pursue a boyhood dream: to build a boat made entirely of wine corks and take it on an epic journey. Cork Boat tells the story of Pollack's improbable quest. Overcoming one obstacle after another, he convinces skeptical bartenders to save their corks, corrals a brilliant but disorganized partner, and eventually cajoles more than one hundred volunteers who help build the boat until their fingers bleed.

Chris Dombrowski was playing a numbers game: two passions - poetry and fly-fishing; two children, one of them in utero; and an income hovering perilously close to zero. Enter, at this particularly challenging moment, a miraculous email: can't go, it's all paid for, just book a flight to Miami. Thus began a journey that would lead to the Bahamas and to David Pinder, a legendary bonefishing guide.

Beginning in the 1960s, this audiobook tells of the real-life adventures of the author as a boy. Encouraged by his parents to become more independent, Peter decided to see how far he could get in his family's small open dinghy, Calypso.

The Last River: The Tragic Race for Shangri-la is a breathtaking account of the ill-fated October 1998 expedition of an American whitewater kayaking team who traveled deep into the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet to run the Yarlung Tsangpo, known in paddling circles as the "Everest of rivers." For Wick Walker and Tom McEwan, extreme whitewater pioneers, best friends, and trip leaders, the Tsangpo adventure was the culmination of a twenty-five-year quest for glory. Yet the team's magnificent dreams crumbled when their ace paddler was swept over a thunderous eight-foot waterfall, never to be seen again.

Kayak adventurer Jim Payne can’t stop running away from home. After solo trips on American and English waterways, recounted in One Inch above the Water (2008) and Discovering England (2012), Payne shares four more harrowing and humorous adventures in Worlds to Discover: Facing angry bulls and breached dams on the Connecticut River.

In this memorable account of 17 trips he made to Hawaii's North Shore starting in 1974, Bruce Jenkins, considered the Kerouac of surf writers, profiles the area's elite, the superstars who live to conquer Hawaii's deadliest waves. Here are the egoists, stylists, gladiators, and purists of the sport, from big-wave greats Darrick Doerner and Mark Foo to bodysurfer Mark Cunningham and bodyboarder Mike Stewart.

Steep Trails by John Muir is a heartfelt and inspiring collection of travel stories from one of America’s greatest nature lovers. In this book, Muir shares his journeys through the mountains, forests, and deserts of the American West—including places like California, Utah, Oregon, and Washington. He writes with wonder and love for the wild, showing us the beauty of tall trees, quiet valleys, rushing rivers, and snow-covered peaks.

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

Two Years Before the Mast is an 1840 memoir by the author Richard Henry Dana. A Harvard graduate, he spent the years 1834 to 1836 as a sailor on a merchant ship on a voyage from Boston to California. The journey took them past Cape Horn on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. Dana provides detailed descriptions of ship life and the technical aspects of sailing. A chapter on California and its inhabitants offers valuable historical insights on the state which was then a foreign land.

The Motorcycle & The Molecule is a comical insight into intentional communities, international travel, and alternative styles of living. Mayan rulers, janky motorcycles, and mischievous beavers all make appearances in a tale inspired by a solo research expedition through Central America.

This inspiring collection contains powerful narratives from women who swim, surf, kayak, study glaciers, advocate for water conservation, carry forward their ancestral fishing traditions, and more. Collected by the team at She Explores, a media company and community that celebrates women in the outdoors, these first-person stories explore themes of independence, strength, healing, and self-discovery in nature.

Deep Water Dreams picks up with Hank and Julie as they, after sailing briefly in the Caribbean, prepare their boat for an Atlantic crossing with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, or ARC.

Zane Grey, known and loved primarily for his Western novels, was an avid fisherman. When his writing started paying off, he managed to spend as many as three hundred days a year enjoying the sport. And while he is remembered for his record-breaking catches, such as the 464-pound marlin caught off the coast of Tahiti, Zane Grey also enjoyed freshwater fishing for bass, trout, steelhead, and salmon. In Tales of Freshwater Fishing, Grey recounts his expeditions on the Delaware River, off the West Coast of the United States, and in British Columbia.