Ocean Passages and Landfalls

Price: £32.50

The world is our oyster, at least in our imaginations. While most of us are content with modest meanderings we can still dream of ambitious adventure. I have long enjoyed Rod Heikell’s Mediterranean pilots, but now he has joined forces with Andy O’Grady (with a little help from Warwick Clay and others) to paint on the sailor’s ultimate canvas. This beautiful book makes a strong case for being the first port of call for real or imaginary blue-water cruise-planners. It offers broadly-based advice on such questions as choice of route, navigation, where and when to go, preparation, compendious data on routes and distances (and such wonderful throw away lines as there are some 50,000 miles of navigable waterways accessible from the Amazon), ocean currents, weather, storms, how to deal with ice and coral, sharks, fishing and swimming, local regulations, risks of disease and malaria in particular, incidences of crime (don’t wander around in Colon while waiting to transit the Panama Canal) and the nagging issue of piracy. There is an excellent index, but one has to be prepared in a book of this scope to turn a lot of pages. The devil is in the detail, of course, especially for sailing, but they also include extensive references to specialised works and sources of information real explorers will require. It is a pleasure to recommend this book! I’ve even ordered my own copy. Although we are not planning more than the usual Channel trips, it might impress a few friends if we display it prominently enough in our boat’s bookshelf.     

Donald W Braben