Grabbing Adventure with Both Hands.
We’re generally not in the business of regurgitating press releases here at SWS, but when we got news of the imminent publication of Jutta Townes memoir “For Love and the Sea” we thought it sounded too good to ignore.
“I had adored the sea as one does a lover in a hot holiday romance, besotted but not wholly sure of my feelings. Cruising, spending years on the water, would transform my love affair into a long-term relationship, a marriage.”
At 18, Jutta Townes leaves her German coal-mining town and migrates to Australia. She meets a lanky Australian engineer, Graeme, with a yen to sail around the world, and together they buy HOPE a traditional wooden gaff-rigged cutter and grab adventure with both hands. They sail through the Torres Strait and west to Christmas Island, across the Indian Ocean to Mombasa then down around the Cape of Good Hope and over to Rio. Then with a new boat – and a new baby – they travel from Germany down the Danube, through the Eastern Bloc countries to Istanbul and beyond.
“For Love and the Sea” is a memoir of discovery, fellowship, and moments of sublime beauty as well as sheer terror. It also looks back, with the compassion and perspective of time, at a young woman finding her way through adulthood and marriage. Townes writes vividly of travel before GPS and satellite communications, includes lively descriptions of sharing anchorages with some well-known sailors such as the Cole family sailing GALINULE with 90-year-old Grandmother aboard, the Cullen brothers on SANDEFJORD David Lewis on REHU MOANA, and Wilfried Erdmann on KATHENA. She explores what it means to grow up, come to terms with the past, and look forward to the future with an adventurous heart.
Available to order from all good bookstores or from your favourite online store.
E-book available on Kindle from 1 August.
Publisher: Ashwood Publishing
Release date: 14 August 2024
Paperback 6×9, 424pp, suggested retail AU$34.99
ISBN: paperback 978-0-6459137-7-4
eBook 978-0-6459137-8-1