Bookshelf

[German] I accidentally ordered the translated german version. These four British middle-aged ladies actually rowed across the Atlantic from La Gomera to Antigua, as part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. I’ve had that trip on my bucketlist for some years and always wanted to read a book about it, and now I have. The whole things seems a lot more doable to me, now. Adventure books mostly have that effect, because the authors tend to have survived. Note to self: do more research on failed attempts. 

The book itself is a quick read. A real page turner for me. The ladies aren’t gifted authors, but they had help. They describe a lot of details surrounding the whole endeavor, probably because the journey itself wasn’t as interesting. Water and rowing all day for two and a half months. The structure of the book is therefore quite good and the content is entertaining and informative. But from time to time they described events that made me think these women were actually naïve teenage girls. Starting from being late to so many important events, sleeping through safety training as if that was cool behavior, killing the boat’s battery during a Christmas party and having to go on without it, packing lots of food they didn’t like and then threw overboard, all the way to severely burning their hands with celebratory torches during the arrival in Antigua. How lucky it all worked out in the end.