May brings an urge to travel – the days are longer, the birds are returning, and school is ending. Everything’s coming to life after the routines of winter. Perhaps you are dreaming of filling up the gas tank and hitting the road or hopping on a plane.
Oops! Fuel prices have skyrocketed, and reality sinks in. If you had a sailboat, the wind would blow you where you wanted to go for free! Sound familiar? No sailboat? You could travel on foot or by bicycle.
In 1984, Kent, Pam, and Andy crossed the Atlantic in their thirty-eight-foot sailboat using less than ten gallons of diesel fuel to charge their batteries. In the 1990s they paid five cents per gallon for diesel fuel in Venezuela. In long-ago times, sailors had no electricity at all, and Pam and Kent met at least one sailing couple (on Emerald) who relied on wind alone.
In 2010, during my first pilgrimage through Spain, I smiled as I passed petrol stations. No need to stop! My boots were my tires, and my legs and lungs the engine, fueled by tortilla de patatas, café con leche, and zumo de Naranja (Spanish tortillas, coffee, and orange juice).
Some Book Recommendations
(Might be Nice to Stay Home and Read!)
If you’re not ready to set sail or take off on foot on the Continental Divide, Appalachian, or Pacific Crest trail, or one of many lesser-known trails or bicycle paths (for the price of shoes, a backpack, and perhaps a bus ticket), but would rather be an armchair traveler, you might enjoy reading We Ran Away to Sea: A Memoir and Letters (if you haven’t already read it), or one of several sailing books I’ve recently enjoyed including A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck (2025) by Sophie Elmhirst, and Child of the Sea: A Memoir of a Sailing Childhood (2012) by Doina Cornell.
Our friend Jim Sollars has also recently added to his series of sailing adventure/detective tales, and Tom Cunliffe, whose gift for storytelling is evident in his portrayal in We Ran Away to Sea, has recently published a historical adventure story of his own, Hurricane Force (2025). I’ve just started reading it, and the opening chapters drop you right into a heart-stopping situation.
For something different, take a look at Seagoing Gaucho, the wild story of a group of Argentinians who sail to Africa, Europe, and navigate the Mediterranean Sea in the years immediately following World War II. On the way home they follow the path of Columbus from Spain to San Salvador, then beyond to North America before returning home. I found the book on Internet Archives. To read it, you need to set up an account, but that is easy to do.
Camino books I’ve recently enjoyed include Jacqueline Saxon’s Tales from the Trail: Keeping It Real on the Camino de Santiago: One African American Woman’s Quest for Clarity (2025), and Andrew McCarthy’s Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain (2023)
As for our writing, I am still working on Home Sea Home, or Andy and the Sextant, a picture book currently with an editor, and on my memoir Once a Pilgrim that may not see the light of day for a long time yet, while Kent is still poking along, prodded by me, editing some of the stories he left out of the original book and writing new stories about his life since then…hint: he meets me!.
Keep reading, and please consider writing a review (no matter how short) of We Ran Away to Sea. Write back! We need encouragement, and we look forward to hearing from you. Add a comment or email us at jacana@jacanapress.com by copying this email or clicking below.
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