shipwreck

Book Review: A Marriage at Sea – A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst

~ Book Club Mom ~ 24 Comments

A Marriage at Sea
A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck
by
Sohpie Elmhirst

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’ve always been drawn to books about storms and disasters at sea so when I learned about A Marriage at Sea, I knew I was going to read it. Published in 2025, it was one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year and was named a New York Times Top Ten Book of 2025. Described by USA Today as “nonfiction that reads like fiction,” it’s the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey and their 1972 attempt to sail from England to New Zealand and start a new life. They made it through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific Ocean when a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat. Maurice and Maralyn grabbed as many supplies as they could and jumped into a dinghy and life raft before the Auralyn sank.

Alone in the middle of the ocean for nearly four months in two rubber rafts, Maurice and Maralyn had to fight to survive the dangerous waters, as well as intense feelings of depression and hopelessness. What qualities equip you to survive such peril? For them, it was a unique combination of self-reliance and a near-obsession with details, skills that took root during their childhoods and made them long to run away from the world. Maurice’s unhappy childhood as an invalid made him feel unloved and isolated. Maralyn, a free thinker, wanted to escape the conventional suburban life that her parents expected her to lead.

The author describes how routines, even on a small life raft in the middle of the ocean, helped keep them alive. But the unique dynamics of their marriage seemed to be the magic component. I was fascinated by how they faced situations because, even though they frequently thought they were doomed, they held on to some intangible that carried them from one day to the next.

I had never heard of the Baileys and fought the urge to look them up while I read. If you read the book, do your best to do the same because it made it all the more interesting to read more later.

As the title indicates, this is as much a story about marriage as it is about survival at sea. I recommend A Marriage at Sea to readers of both fiction and nonfiction who like stories about relationships and adversity.

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

Book Review: The Wager – A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann

~ Book Club Mom ~ 28 Comments

The Wager
A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder
by David Grann

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I’ve always loved a good sea-faring tale. And I already knew David Grann was an excellent writer (read my review of Killers of the Flower Moon here), so I dove into The Wager, knowing little about the ship or the story behind it, just that it was a tale of shipwreck and more.

The Wager was one of eight British ships that sailed from Portsmouth, England in 1740, on a secret mission to capture a “treasure-filled Spanish galleon” near Cape Horn, South America. At the time, Britain and Spain were the dominant forces of imperialism around the world, eager to acquire and control far-off lands. The War of Jenkins’ Ear (you can imagine the details) erupted between Britain and Spain when the Spanish coast guard, searching for contraband, attacked a British ship.

Despite typhus, scurvy, and other hardships, the ships (minus one cargo ship that departed the group) made the 8000-mile trip to Cape Horn, and that’s when the trouble began. I was fascinated by the description of the treacherous waters between the southernmost tip of South America and Antarctica, where the Atlantic meets the Pacific. The ships spent weeks trying to navigate through Drake Passage and around Cape Horn, with all kinds of trouble. Imagine sailing through this with only wind power and limited navigational tools!

Why is the book titled The Wager? Well, in the middle of Drake Passage, Captain David Cheap lost sight of the rest of the ships. As Grann writes, “The Wager was alone at sea, left to its own destiny.” They made it around Cape Horn, but were shipwrecked off the coast of Patagonia, on an unforgiving, unpopulated island, with very few resources.

Now, the men on the ship were a rough crew, including criminals and vagrants. Some, of course, were officers or in training. But many of the 250 original men were not actually sailors, forcefully conscripted off the streets to fill the boat. To prepare for battle, a group from the British army joined the crew, but they knew nothing about ships!

Ninety-one men survived the shipwreck, including seventeen-year-old John Byron, future grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, and a super-interesting man named John Bulkeley, the gunner. Bulkeley was strong, smart, and a natural leader, but also a little chippy. And he didn’t like Cheap, who wasn’t much of a leader. Factions split and tensions rose, leading to a murder. This part is also fascinating.

Grann got this information from the multitude of journals the officers and others kept.

Some from The Wager made it back to England, and slowly, stragglers from the other ships returned. Survivors published books. Bulkeley’s was a favorite. But eventually, charges of wrongdoing, abandoning the naval mission, mutiny, and murder led to a court-martial.

You’ll have to read it to find out what happened. I thought it was incredible that these survivors traveled across the world on wooden ships, close to three hundred years ago. What a story.

I highly recommend The Wager, for readers who like stories about tension between in highly-stressed situations.

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!