Yay another Review Request! Wow we are actually reviewing books regularly! It’s amazing! So who loves the sea? Who loves boating? Who would love to boat around the world? Well this family did and I am bringing you all the dirt on it! This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire

Author: Wendy Hinman

Published: 2017/04/01

Version: Paperback

Pages: 411

Started: 2017/04/13

Finished: 2017/04/19

Rating: 

Amazon Synopsis: A shipwreck might end a dream of circumnavigating the globe. Not for the Wilcox family. To triumph, they must rebuild their boat on a remote Pacific island. Damage sustained on the reef and a lack of resources haunt them the rest of the way around the world as they face daunting obstacles, including wild weather, pirates, gun boats, mines and thieves, plus pesky bureaucrats and cockroaches as stubborn as the family. Without a working engine and no way to communicate with the outside world, they struggle to reach home before their broken rig comes crashing down and they run out of food in a trial that tests them to their limits.

My Thoughts: I thought I had outgrown books with pictures… I was so completely wrong! I love the pics scattered throughout the book! It makes everything so much more real for someone who has never spent much time on a boat, I think a ferry is all I’ve been on actually… And at the back of the book is a nifty list of words and their meanings! How cool is that? I feel sea worthy already.
The book starts off with a shipwreck to really get your heart pounding then rewinds to the family preparing for the voyage. In the next four hundred odd pages you will sail around the world, learn quite a bit of history, geography, and about a ton of different cultures. The descriptions are beautiful, you can really imagine yourself in the crystal clear water snorkeling along or half drowned as something fails during a storm. You will rise up with the Wilcox’s when things go well and despair with them when something goes wrong. It’s some pretty epic writing.
My favorite part is all the descriptions of the different places the family visits; I’ve never been off the mainland of the US so even Hawaii sounded incredibly exotic! But it was also cool to learn that not everywhere is quite so picturesque yet still described in detail.
Another favorite is how incredibly smart the son (can’t think of names…) is, he was able to make so many things to help the boat, or repairs, or even make little boats himself! It was also nice to learn that he went on to continue with boating life, that no matter how bad things got it didn’t take away his passion for the water.
The saddest part of the book was definitely the very end where we learn what happens to the family years after the boating affair. There were however, plenty of hardships (lol) all throughout the book so if you like a good struggle for your heroes you will not be disappointed.
Overall, a really great read! You will learn a ton and have your curiosity peaked! I seriously want to try boating now… Hmmm…

If you like boats, machine guns, history, new cultures, or shipwrecks this is the book for you. If you need the kraken to show up… There are sharks and giant mantas so it’s kinda like the kraken!

Anyone else read Sea Trials? What did you think? You, me boat trip?