Alone At Sea

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Pomona Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The true story of Canada's greatest sailor, the first to sail around the world single-handedly. When Joshua Slocum sailed into port in Massachusetts on June 27, 1898, he was the first man ever to have completed a voyage around the world without technology, money or companion. It took him three years to cover the 46,000 miles, and along the way he was chased by pirates, buffeted by storms, and narrowly escaped death by sharks. When a goat ate his charts, he managed to navigate through the Caribbean by memory and intuition. This is the true-life adventure story of an extraordinary man, who ran away to sea at sixteen and never looked back. Born on a farm in Nova Scotia, he apprenticed on voyages to China, Hong Kong and Indonesia; met and married his wife in Sydney, Australia, and raised his family aboard sailing vessels in ports around the world. He survived mutinies, lost cargoes, terrible storms, and treacheries at sea before resolving on his voyage around the world in a dilapidated oyster sloop he named The Spray. After settling down and writing his memoirs, he set sail on November 14, 1909, and was never seen again.

Discover the beautiful stories of Michael Morpurgo, author of Warhorse and the nation’s favourite storyteller. How far would you go to find yourself? The lyrical, life-affirming new novel from the bestselling author of Private Peaceful

"Solitude is terrifying and awe-inspiring in Alone." —The Wall Street Journal In April 2013, fifty-year-old Brett Archibald was on board a surf-charter boat, making a night-time crossing of the remote Mentawai Strait off Sumatra, Indonesia. In the middle of a storm, ill with severe food poisoning, he blacked out. When he came to, he found himself in the raging sea, sixty miles from shore. As Brett saw the lights of his boat disappearing into the darkness, it became clear that no one had seen him fall, and that no one would hear his shouts for help. He was alone in the ocean. It would be eight hours before his friends realized he was missing. At that point a frantic search began for a single man somewhere in thousands of square miles of heaving waves. The rough weather meant that no planes or helicopters could assist in the search. According to the experts, he should have died within ten to fourteen hours. Instead, Brett battled Portuguese man o' war and jellyfish, sharks, seagulls, and the stormy seas for more than 28 hours. Alone is the remarkable tale of his miraculous survival and rescue. It is also the story of what it takes to defy extraordinary odds and the incredible power of the human spirit.

Alone is the extraordinary account of Terry Jo Duperrault, who, at age eleven, survived four days on a raft in the middle of the ocean after her family was brutally murdered aboard a chartered sailboat.

With over seventy photographs and maps, an extensive glossary of fishing terms, and a detailed chronology of the Gloucester fleet, including all the fishermen and vessels lost at sea since 1693, 'Alone at Sea' is a comprehensive record of life in the area.

The miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history. For fourteen months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. He learned to catch fish with his bare hands. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. Taking apart the outboard motor, he fashioned a huge fishhook. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes. Based on dozens of hours of interviews with Alvarenga and interviews with his colleagues, search and rescue officials, the medical team that saved his life and the remote islanders who nursed him back to health, this is an epic tale of survival. Print run 75,000.

In 1978 the twenty-eight-year-old New Zealander, Naomi James, became the first woman to sail single-handed around the globe via Cape Horn. She did this in the fastest time ever. Naomi tells of her despair when the radio broke and she faced months of silence; of her embarrassment at discovering after three months at sea, that she had been confusing latitude with longitude; of her grief when the ship's kitten, Boris, went overboard; and of the black horror of a dawn capsize off Cape Horn.