Get
ready to delve into the wonders of the South Pacific with our brand new
release:
"Far Out: Sailing into a Disappearing World"
by
Corinna Weyreter
We are pleased to have our Boathook Books author Corinna Weyreter, author of our newly released sailing book Far Out on the blog today with her guest post introducing the concept of the book and the experiences that inspired it.
About Far Out: Sailing into a Disappearing World
Tired of their
careers in the oil industry, Corinna Weyreter and Gjalt van der Zee sailed away
from the rat race in search of freedom and adventure in the fabled South
Pacific. Taking only what could justify its space on their 41-foot yacht, they
abandoned materialism to discover how little a person really needs in order to
be content. Trading with fishermen in Belize, learning desert island survival
from the lone inhabitant of a Polynesian atoll, swimming with humpback whales
beside the coral island of Niue, attending the wedding of a Chief’s son in
Vanuatu ... they entered an enchanting new world. But Earth is under threat
from humanity. During a period when the human population doubled, animal
species plummeted by more than a quarter. 41% of all oceans have been strongly
affected by Man’s activities, 19% of our coral reefs have died, and 29% of
fisheries have collapsed. The young couple found a beautiful world beyond the
urban sprawl and rampant consumerism of mankind, but its future is fragile. In Far Out, Corinna takes us into that
disappearing world and shows us its fragility with sensitive first-hand
knowledge.
Welcome Corinna:
When we arrived in Australia we had the
disconcerting feeling that we’d sailed across the Pacific only to end up back
where we’d started. The low-rise shopping malls and restaurant chains were so
similar to those in the States that it felt as though we’d emerged from some
kind of oceanic wormhole linking one first world country to another. The
journey in between those two places had been so magical that I wanted to
capture it somehow, and that’s why I wrote Far
Out.
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The Gulf of Mexico (where they trained) |
As we made our way
through the Western Caribbean to reach the Panama Canal
we got used to life onboard. Gjalt
had always loved the sea and I’d spent weeks working on isolated offshore oil
rigs, so neither of us minded being beyond sight of land. We
enjoyed being self-sufficient, generating our own electricity with solar panels
and a towing generator that could be converted into a wind turbine, using our
fresh water supply sparingly, catching our own fish. We didn’t miss TV or the internet; in
fact it was a relief to get away from all that ‘noise’. We discovered how little people really need to be
content.
![]() |
Marquesas Islands |
Cruising quickly took us to a whole new world. As
close to the States as Belize, we were trading with fishermen for lobsters,
rice being more essential to life on a remote cay than money. In the Marquesas Islands, the tattooed descendants
of fearsome warriors welcomed us with fruit from their immaculately tended
gardens, and in Vanuatu we were guests at the wedding of a village chief’s son.
It was wonderful to be surrounded by nature, to connect with it in a way that isn’t possible in a
city. We swam with dolphins in Belize, sea lions in the Galápagos, and a
humpback whale calf and its mother beside the coral island of Niue; we
snorkelled on hypnotically beautiful coral reefs, and learnt survival skills
from the lone inhabitant of a French Polynesian atoll.
![]() |
Belize location |
Living closely with
nature opened our eyes to the impact mankind has on the environment. In Belize,
large lobsters were getting harder to find each year, and the smaller ones
being caught in their place were too immature to have reproduced, exacerbating
the decline. The Galápagos Islands were under strain from unchecked migration, over-development and illegal
fishing. The coral reefs we spent many wonderful hours
exploring are threatened by ocean acidification and warming seas, and the
jewel-like atolls of the Tuamotus are at risk of vanishing beneath the waves.
The
world we sailed into was beautiful but fragile, and I tried to capture it in Far Out, whilst hoping that it doesn’t
disappear beyond its pages.
Thank you Corinna for sharing some inspiring insights into your amazing sailing journey. More about Corinna:
If you enjoyed Corinna's guest post, why not get hold of your own copy of Far Out now?
Amazon Kindle The Book Depository
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