Showing titles in Water Sports

Written and read by Jessica Watson, this is the story of a remarkable girl who followed her dream and conquered the world. There is something different about adventurers, about the way their minds work. They look at the world as a place of challenges and though they know what fear is, they refuse to be hindered by it.

When you read about someone sailing around the world, it’s usually a dotcom millionaire or a professional adventurer. Brave or Stupid? tells a very different story. It’s an everyman tale about a middle-aged, seasick electrician with no money who suddenly and for no reason decides to sail around the world. It’s the story of Yanne Larsson, a man with a dream born not out of a passion for sailing or a search for identity or the need for a challenge. This is the story of a simple handshake. One of the old-fashioned, ironclad ones.

Do you have a dream you must pursue, but everyone says it's unrealistic? Or that you're not qualified? Too old, too out of shape? Or you don't have the "right experience?" Glenn Damato was a 41-year-old software instructor who sought to exceed the bounds of his comfortable but humdrum existence. He embarked on an adventure for which he was miserably unprepared. Why did he do this? How did he answer the ancient human question: how do we jump-start growth in our lives? We become something we were not.

Written by one of the most revered surfers of his generation, Gerry Lopez's Surf Is Where You Find It is a collection of stories about a lifetime of surfing. But more than that, it is a collection of stories about the lessons learned from surfing. It presents 38 stories about those who have been influential in the sport - surfing anytime, anywhere, and in any way.

Danie Couchman grew up on the move, her family never staying still long enough for her to say where she's from. At 25, and living in her 17th home, she finds herself drowning in the rush of London life and makes an impulsive decision: to buy a narrowboat and make it her home. Surrounded by an eclectic and itinerant community in the uncharted territory of the capital's urban wilderness, Danie becomes fully immersed in this hidden world. Each day on board her boat, Genesis, is an adventure full of disaster and magic.

After sailing 300,000 miles and weathering dozens of storms in all the world's oceans, John Kretschmer has plenty of stories and advice to share. John's offshore training passages sell out a year in advance, and his entertaining presentations are popular at boat shows and yacht clubs all over the English-speaking world. John's talent for storytelling enchants his audience as it soaks up the lessons he learned during his often challenging voyages. Now you can take a seat next to John - at a lesser cost - and get the knowledge you need to fulfill your own dream of blue-water adventure.

In The Cold Fix, Sara takes the listener on an enthralling journey, from her first tentative steps into the water, to meeting other swimmers from around the world who share her passion and who can help her answer the question: what is it about cold water that proves irresistible to an increasing number of people?

After a decade of trying to become a mother - 11 rounds of unsuccessful IVF, multiple miscarriages and a pregnancy which proved almost fatal - Jessica Hepburn knew it was time to do something different. So she decided to swim the 21 miles across the English Channel - no easy feat, especially for someone with an aversion to exercise who couldn't swim very well.

Tales of adventures on the high seas captivate both sailors and those who stand on the shore and gaze out across the oceans. In this original collection of sea stories, edited by veteran writer Dick Durham, the gamut of human experience is mirrored in a world of tragic shipwrecks and sea monsters, epic races and brave rescues, tall ships and tiny dinghies.

Yet familiar though the sea areas are by name, few people give much thought to where they are or what they contain. In Attention All Shipping, Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography. Armchair travel will never be the same again.

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.

Normality is so over-rated. Boat life is better. In her debut memoir Narrow Margins, Marie Browne saved her family from financial ruin by moving her long-suffering husband, three children, and a dog on to a houseboat called Happy Go Lucky in search of a less stressful, alternative way of life. Now in Narrow Minds the family find themselves sucked back into normality, they’re pretty much back where they started: horrible house, no boat, and the kids are beginning to threaten mutiny.

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.

When Guirec Soudée was 21 years old, he bought a 30-foot sailboat and set out across the Atlantic, despite having only sailed a dinghy before. His only companion? His plucky pet hen, Monique. Guirec never intended to sail the world with a chicken, but after reaching the Caribbean, he and Monique made for Greenland - and emerged from the pack ice 100 days later.

Joshua Slocum was believed to be the first man to sail single-handed around the world. After a distinguished career, where he worked his way up from cabin boy to captain, Joshua Slocum wrecked his ship off the coast of Brazil. Turning this catastrophe to his advantage, he built a sailing canoe from the wreckage and sailed back to New York. Moreover, he wrote Voyage of the Liberdad, a chronicle of his trip, and earned some literary success.

Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her family on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child in dire circumstances deprived of safety, friendships, schooling, occasionally drinking water...

Eleven-time world surfing champion, actor, and American heartthrob Kelly Slater tells his inspiring story of triumph over adversity. From Beach Blanket Bingo to Baywatch to Blue Crush, surfing has fascinated people for years, and Kelly Slater is the sport’s hottest star. He has won more world championships than any other competitor, and he continues to change peoples’ minds about what can and can’t be done on a surfboard.

Thirteen Lessons That Saved Thirteen Lives is diver John Volanthen’s nail-biting account of the incredible rescue of a Thai youth soccer team who had been trapped for over a week in a flooded cave.

Freya is still searching. For four years, she's been looking for a way to fill the empty space her brother's death left behind. Ready for another distraction, Freya decides to swim every tidal pool in Britain in a year with her friend Miri. The adventure takes them from a pool hidden in the cliffs of fishing-village Polperro to the quarry lagoon of Abereiddi via Trinkie Wick where locals meet each year to give the pool wall a fresh lick of paint.

By the same author as the best-selling Total Loss, this is a new collection of terrifying and compelling accounts of yachts lost at sea. The seven deadly causes of loss continue to take their toll, and Paul Gelder has compiled firsthand accounts of shipwreck and sinking caused by collision, gear failure, stress of weather, faulty navigation, fire, crew failure, and exhaustion. The moving, emotionally charged descriptions of shipwrecked sailors abandoning their yachts at sea will have you on the edge of your seat.