Showing titles in Water Sports

This 148-day journey began on Darcy Gaechter’s 35th birthday. She sold her successful outdoor adventure business, upsetting her partner and boyfriend of 12 years and getting them both fired in the process. The emotional waters that would fester and erupt on the ensuing journey were often more challenging to navigate than the mighty river itself. With blistering lips and irradiated fingernails, Darcy would tackle raging Class Five whitewater for 25 days straight, barely surviving a dynamite-filled canyon being prepared for a new hydroelectric plant.

Sailing Made Easy is the first step in a voyage that will last you the rest of your life. It is a gift from a group of dedicated sailing professionals who have committed their lives to sharing their art, their skill, and their passion for this wonderful activity.

Admiral Stavridis, a leader in military, international affairs, and national security circles, shares his love of the sea and some of the sources of that affection. The Sailor's Bookshelf offers synopses of fifty books that illustrate the history, importance, lore, and lifestyle of the oceans and of those who "go down to the sea in ships." Divided into four main categories, Admiral Stavridis's choices will appeal to "old salts" and to those who have never known the sights of the ever-changing seascape, nor breathed the tonic of an ocean breeze.

A soulful collection of nearly four decades of surf writing. In Deep transports listeners into the heart of the surfing world’s culture through the eyes and imagination of a master storyteller. George’s personality profiles, perspective essays, and travel accounts achieve a level of frank articulation that, much like the works of Theroux, Krakauer, and Finnegan, reveal as much about the man as it does his subjects. Peak transcendence and quiet reflection, famous beaches and lost islands, competitive triumphs and personal tragedies.

A witness to incredible heroism and unspeakable tragedy, Nick remained at sea for more than 40 hours, holding on, hoping against hope and clinging to the thought that he couldn’t bear to have his mother attend his funeral. Not Without Hope is much more than a story of survival. It is an inspiring story of friendship, resolve, and courage.

For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dis​missed these stories - waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet’s waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea - including several that approached 100 feet.

A "normal" Caribbean hurricane travels from east to west, but Lenny was anything but normal. Spawned south of Cuba in 1999, this late-season storm defied all predictions by moving steadily east toward the Leeward Islands. Eventually building almost to Category 5 strength, Lenny squatted for two days between the Virgin Islands and St. Martin, whipping the ocean with 155 mile-per-hour winds and sixty-foot seas.

City girl Torre DeRoche isn’t looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He’s just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is terrified of deep water. However, lovesick Torre determines that to keep the man of her dreams, she must embark on the voyage of her nightmares, so she waves good-bye to dry land and braces for a life-changing journey that’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying.

For 20 years, Miki "Da Cat" Dora was the king of Malibu surfers - a dashing, enigmatic rebel who dominated the waves, ruled his peers' imaginations, and who still inspires the fantasies of wannabes to this day. And yet, Dora railed against surfing's sudden post-Gidget popularity and the overcrowding of his once empty waves, even after this avid sportsman, iconoclast, and scammer of wide repute ran afoul of the law and led the FBI on a remarkable seven-year chase around the globe in 1974.

Whether in lake, lido, river or sea, we know the benefits of swimming outdoors and in nature—environmentally friendly and accessible, it can influence our happiness, our energy and our inner tranquillity. Winter Swimming takes this one step further, as contact with cold water all year round can also have a significant positive impact on our physical health, confidence and well-being. Danish scientist Susanna Søberg leads us step by step into the icy water and explains the 'cold-shock response', the massive endorphin rush as our body reacts and adapts.

Unrelenting winds, carnivorous polar bears, snake nests, sweltering heat, and constant hunger. Paddling from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay, following the 2,000-mile route made famous by Eric Sevareid in his 1935 classic Canoeing with the Cree, Natalie Warren and Ann Raiho faced unexpected trials, some harrowing, some simply odd. Warren's spellbinding account retraces the women's journey from inspiration to Arctic waters, giving listeners an insider view of planning a three-month canoe expedition to the successful accomplishment of the adventure of a lifetime.

Celestial Navigation for the Complete Idiot is groundbreaking not because of what it has, but what it doesn't have: no mathematics problems; no astronomical talk; and no big words you've never heard of. Sailor-author Gene Grossman finally breaks this wonderful subject down into plain English and explains it in such a way that you will no longer have any excuse to claim that you know nothing about the valuable boater's subject of celestial navigation.

Millions of us increasingly seek happiness in fads and self-help books, reaching upward every day toward some enlightened state that we wish to attain. Surfing icon Laird Hamilton is more intent on looking inward and appreciating the brilliant creatures we already are. In Liferider, Laird uses five key pillars - Death & Fear, Heart, Body, Soul, and Everything Is Connected - to illustrate his unique worldview and life practices. This is Laird Hamilton in his own words - raw, honest, and unvarnished - on topics he has rarely explored before.

The sport of surfing has a mystique and allure that has transformed many of these icons into mythical figures. Surfer Stories brings them together in one definitive collection that will appeal to those who surf and those who don’t!

At middle age, Herb and Nancy Payson decided they needed a change. Why not give up life on shore, quit their jobs in the smoky nightclubs of Los Angeles, and take up the cruising life? In Sea Foam, their 36-foot ketch, the Paysons and their large brood of teenage children cruised the Pacific for six and a half years. They experienced a certain amount of stark terror, but their delights far outbalanced the drawbacks. This special 35th anniversary edition is enhanced with a foreword by Lin Pardey, plus Herb's reflections on how cruising affected his children and his relationship with his determined, lifelong partner/wife Nancy.

Turmoil in the Mideast convinces Glen and Julie to linger in the South Pacific, visiting primitive villages on remote islands. But hang on tight, because to finish their voyage, they must leave friendly shores and navigate through trouble in the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea before arriving in Europe. Full of dry wit and compelling descriptions, Julie takes the listener along for the ride of a lifetime in this sequel (book two of the Escape Series) to her previous best seller Escape from the Ordinary.

For years the world has followed his progress, from teen sensation in Sydney to bona fide phenom in Athens, and now as a living Olympic legend in Beijing with a peerless record of gold medals, more than any Olympic athlete throughout history. In No Limits, Michael Phelps - the greatest competitor we've seen since Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or Lance Armstrong - will share with listeners the secrets to his remarkable success, from training to execution.

Home from Distant Seas completes the trilogy of books by James Baldwin recounting his 25 years of live-aboard cruising adventures. The author creates a tribute to the sea and to those who venture upon her in small voyaging sailboats as he describes his personal journey of survival and discovery at sea as well as the sailors and local people he met along the way. Continuing here with the memoir of his second adventurous circumnavigation begun in his earlier books Bound for Distant Seas and The Next Distant Sea.

Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell is surfer and former war reporter Chas Smith's wild and unflinching look at the high-stakes world of surfing on Oahu's North Shore - a riveting, often humorous, account of beauty, greed, danger, and crime. For two months every winter, when Pacific storms make landfall, swarms of mainlanders, Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans flock to Oahu's paradisiacal North Shore for surfing's Triple Crown competition. Smith reveals how this influx transforms a sleepy strip of coast into a lawless, violent, drug-addled, and adrenaline-soaked mecca.

On September 2, 2013, at the age of 64, Diana Nyad emerged onto the sands of Key West after swimming 111 miles, nation to nation, Cuba to Florida, in an epic feat of both endurance and human will, in 53 hours. Diana carried three poignant messages on her way across this stretch of shark-infested waters, and she spoke them to the crowd in her moment of final triumph.