Tag: A Marriage at Sea

Ready to Travel? And Happy Mothers’ Day!

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.

Coot Under Sail, 1990s

 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.

Linnea Departing on Her FIrst Camino in April 2010

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.

Kent and Linnea

Oh-Oh It’s no Longer April

  OH-OH! I NEVER SENT THIS, AND NOW IT IS MAY!
April Showers!

We woke this morning to clouds and a hint of rain, so welcome in parched New Mexico, where temperatures have reached record-breaking heights for most of March, and our irrigation ditches, which should have been flowing by now, are still dry. 

The Day Before April

The day before April
Alone, alone,
I walked in the woods
And I sat on a stone.

I sat on a broad stone
And sang to the birds.
The tune was God’s making
But I made the words.
— Mary Carolyn Davies (1888–1974)

Who was Mary Carolyn Davies?

 I always remembered that opening line as “the first day of April…” but I was wrong!  Curious about who Mary Carolyn Davies was, I searched for information about her and discovered an interesting but sad story. The most complete account is an article by Dan Colburn in the online Oregon Encyclopedia.

At the the University of California at Berkeley in 1912, during her first year,  Davies made a name for herself as a poet. However, she dropped out and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, where she arrived with $4.85 to her name.  She published her first book of poetry, came to the attention of Louis Untermeyer (poet, critic and anthologist) who said her work varied from hack work to serious poetry. She published several books of poetry and at least one play,  achieving considerble success in the 1920s, returning to Oregon home for some years before returning to New York. She apparently stopped writing, and someone found her in the 1940s, quite destitute in New York City. According to the Oregon Encyclopedia she lived until 1974, but nothig seems to be known about her later years.  A mystery investigate, perhaps?

Do You Have a Book Club?

We think We Ran Away to Sea could inspire some lively discussions.  Here are some questions to get you started.  https://jacanapress.com/book-club-discussion-guidelines

Another Good Book to Read

If you enjoyed We Ran Away Sea, you might also enjoy A Marriage at Sea — a book a neighbor alerted us to about a week ago. It turns out Kent long ago read the account written by Maurice Bailey, the subject (along with his wife Maralyn) of this book.  Although Kent and Pam did not experience a dramatic shipwreck, their book is also, in some ways, an exploration of their marriage. Here is my review: Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst.

This beautifully constructed narrative draws on diaries, news accounts, and interviews to tell the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey to fill in the context of their incredible survival story after their sailboat was sunk by a whale in the Pacific Ocean. It really is the story of a marriage at sea, and how two unusual people, who complement each other managed to survive against incredible odds. Even though Maurice had written his own account of their survival, Elmhirst manages to hold the reader’s interest by adding background and additional information to flesh out their story and give it a meaning beyond what even the survivors may have understood. The entire story is profoundly moving, and ironically, these two, who wanted to be alone together at sea, end up becoming celebrities and darlings of the media, upon whom they have to rely for the resources to continue to pursue the life they want.