Over the course of twenty years of delivering sailboats to far-flung quaysides, John Kretschmer has had innumerable adventures, both humorous and terrifying. In Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he discovers the existence of Force 13 winds. Approaching Japan at the end of a particularly trying delivery, he finds himself sailing in "a high impact debris zone," but his resolve is unshaken. "If a piece of rocketship jetsam fell out of the sky and sank [me] after encounters with Hurricane Floyd, General Noriega, a tsunami, an erupting volcano, and Typhoon Roy, then it was meant to be."

Song of the Sirens is a classic. Newsweek

Caswell offers advice on everything from choosing the right cruising area, a good company to charter from and selecting a suitable boat, to dealing with common problems encountered on charters.

The main intent of this book is to prepare the North American sailor for his first crossing of the Atlantic to Europe. It is actually so exhaustive in its coverage that it will indeed help the bluewater sailor to learn how to cross any ocean in the world.

Rae Ellen Lee is a writer and sailing enthusiast.

In 1996, the author and her husband sailed from Phuket, Thailand to Cyprus as part of a multi-year circumnavigation of the globe. While traveling through the Red Sea, they were arrested and detained for questioning by Eritrean soldiers for 23 days. She offers a memoir of the entire trip, with a day-

This is an account of a British family's 37-day fight to survive the perils of the Pacific after their schooner is attacked and sunk by killer whales.