Book review – Adrift Seventy Six Days Lost at Sea – Steven Callahan

Ballantine Books – New York. 1986.

It is about an ordeal at sea and as the title says the sailor man was adrift, lost at sea for seventy six days. His sailing boat was lost in the Atlantic Ocean and he stayed within his raft with minimum food and water supplies. He is describing his effort to handle the raft with all the tools he had. His descriptions are accompanied with his emotions telling and information about the weather. Actually the weather was his hope for moving the raft to the shipping lanes of the Atlantic Ocean or to reach an island such as Antigua. He had specific ways to distil water and he was drinking minimum sips of it each day because of its shortage. He had a speargun and he was fishing making fish almost entirely his only diet. Several ships had passed in front of his eyes but none picked hip up. Finally the waves and the current brought him in an island close to Guadeloupe. He was rescued by local fishermen and then it was a list of illnesses that the doctors found on him. He couldn’t eat as he used to eat after his adventure. His weak health condition remained for some time and also his wounds whereas the local islanders were trying to cure him and make him laugh. This adventure strengthened his appreciation about life values such as that all human are equal and all people have a chance. During his description humour and dream was not lacking and the book as a whole has a positive attitude in terms of always trying and giving effort even in such a difficult situation.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close