Run Away to Sea with the Figure 8 Voyage Book
Dear Virtual Voyagers,
If you are looking for a way to visit the watery parts of the world without leaving the house, then know the Figure 8 Voyage book is arriving and available for order.
The present volume is a coffee-table-style picture book and tells the story of the Figure 8 Voyage through the many images included in Mo and Randall’s daily reports from sea during their 384-day, nearly 40,000-mile odyssey. (The second volume, due out later in the year, will contain the longer narrative.)
This book is softbound and printed on heavy paper of 11 by 8.5 inches; it is 100 pages, 10,000 words, and 250 color photographs from every ocean and every weather.
$25.95
Copies numbered and signed by author.
Why a Picture Book?
From the Introduction: As a young admirer of sea-faring stories, I was often most attracted to the pictures. Melville’s Moby Dick may well have been written for boys, but this boy spent his hours in that volume admiring Rockwell Kent’s woodcuts more than the sentences they were intended to illustrate.
As an adult, I have come to the end of many a bluewater tale—be it Alone through the Roaring Forties, The Fight of the Firecrest, Once is Enough, The Long Way, A World of My Own, Ice with Everything—having been captivated by the weave of words but wanting more than the scant few photographs at the book’s center.
What is the color of ocean that dances beneath Pacific trades?How does a wave curl and crash at 47 degrees south? What did Joshua really look like in a seaway?
The goal of this book, then, is to be a pictorial accompaniment to the longer Figure 8 Voyage narrative and to satisfy the person who, like me, may desire that additional perspective of a seagoing adventure story. Words here have been kept to a minimum and serve simply to frame the action and add context to the images. What’s important is that the reader see the ocean as the camera sees it over many days, many miles and many latitudes.
Take a peek inside…
