the reviews

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - Bill Bushnell

Armchair sailors love to read about other people's round-the-world sailing voyages. If they had to do it themselves, however, they would find such a journey to be a grueling test of patience, endurance, and self-reliance. Even experienced blue water sailors find a global circumnavigation to be a daunting challenge. World Voyagers is the marvelous true story of the round-the-world sailing voyage of Georgetown (Maine) residents Amy Wood and Phil Shelton, told with humor, excitement, and unvarnished honesty.
[Read More] [Collapse Text]

Amy and Phil. are married and had long dreamed of a sailing circumnavigation. They took 10 years to build their own boat, a sturdy, wooden-hulled, 42-foot, gaff rigged cutter named Iwalani, The Wood-Shelton voyage began in Maine in 2000, and took three long years, finally ending back ill Maine in 2003. Amy and Phil sacrificed a great deal to live their dream, perhaps even believing a bit of the romanticized notions of the pleasures of such a trip. They quickly realized that a sailing circumnavigation is a lot of hard work, and an uneven mix of boredom, fatigue, frayed nerves, short tempers, unexpected calamity, and unmatched peace and beauty.
This book then is a chronicle of their sailing adventures, as well as an eye-opening travelogue, and an honest, sometimes embarrassing appraisal of their own personal strengths and weaknesses, and intimate details of married life at sea. Phil and Amy carefully prepared themselves and their boat for this trip, but still had to endure storms, rogue waves, seasickness, mechanical breakdowns, illness, and injury, all while living in a close-quarters world reduced to a small boat and three miles of visibility in any direction in good weather.
Despite their best efforts, there were times when the voyage seemed too much for them. Phil once declared, "You have to be crazy in order to sail around the world. No person in his right mind would do this!" Living at sea is not at all like living at home on land. Each person stands alternating watches, four hours on and four off, all day and night, every day. There is no privacy and a distinct lack of quality personal hygiene. Fatigue is a major problem.
They sailed from Maine south to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, up the Atlantic and back to Maine. They tell of all their sailing experiences and ports, adding colorful insight to their ambitious itinerary. They tell of rampant government corruption in Jamaica, of the Panama Canal's rundown condition and incompetent operators, about the widespread crime in South Africa, and about being chased by Indonesian pirates. Amy even had to fend off the persistently unwelcome advances of a boatyard Lothario in Cape Town.
Still, there are pleasant and funny stories, too. They describe the beauty of Polynesia, the kindness of the Pacific islanders and other yachtsmen, the antics of Stewart the Cat, their lazy feline crewmember, and the irony of the lingerie model photo shoot aboard their boat. Learn how engine room profanity really helps when you need to make a difficult repair, why sailors never start a voyage on a Friday, how to get a crab out of your ear, about the medicinal uses of fish mucous, about the tasty dish called Goat's Head Soup, and how lawyers and missionaries have taken all the fun out of life.
Despite the hazards, risks, discomforts, and losses of friends at sea, Amy and Phil experience a fabulous journey of self-discovery, introspection, and renewal. They learned much about themselves, the sea, and the world around them. They also learned that they will probably not do this again. This book is supplemented nicely with maps and color photographs. --BY WILLIAM D. BUSHNELL The Associated Press Oct 2007

GOOD OLD BOAT - Susan Lynn Kingsbury

Author Amy P. Wood stated that she wanted to write a book that told the true story -- not one with fluff – and she indeed accomplishes this feat with World Voyagers, an all encompassing detailed account of a three year circumnavigation aboard Iwalani.
Although this book is lengthy, it reads like a daily log or blog, (which is where Amy and Phil originally posted the details of their trip online), and it allows the reader to ultimately become part of the crew, sailing right along with Phil, Amy and Stewart.
[Read More] [Collapse Text]

It’s easy to forget you’re just “reading” about being places like the Bahamas, Jamaica, Panama, Marquesas, Australia and South Africa (Just to name a few) as Amy unequivocally “takes you there.” She shares all the joys, pitfalls, sights, smells, experiences and enough of herself with us to make us feel like we really are encountering the adventure firsthand. You’ll feel the seasickness she hides from her husband Phil, find yourself waking up every four hours to do your watch, and even crying along with them when they loose their beloved pet at sea.
But you’ll also feel the warm sun on your skin as you sail naked in the tropics, see waters in multiple amazing shades of blue, meet interesting people from all corners of the world and get up close and personal with lions and many other furred, feathered and finned wildlife. Then, once in home port again, you’ll feel a true sense of accomplishment.
Well, actually, it’s Amy and Phil who succeed in doing something they had a burning desire in their hearts to do.
“ It was a goal we could not abandon.” Author Amy P. Wood writes.
They see it through – and you are right there with them, and despite all the obstacles, from an ex-wife and family who needs them at home, to health issues, to uncooperative winds, weather and currents, Amy and Phil not only chase the wind to fulfill their dream, but succeed in catching it and telling the tale.
If you are expecting a lot of flowery language and poetic descriptions of this three year trek, you won’t get it. What you will get is a 100 percent, hands on, authentic account of blue water sailing.
Whether you are a coastal cruiser, blue water cruiser, sailing novice or just enjoy reading about a great adventure, you are guaranteed to enjoy sharing Amy, Phil and Stewart’s journey across the deep blue sea.

WOODENBOAT - W.H. Bunting

In the late 1990s an old red Yankee-class iceboat occasionally appeared on Maine lakes. Sailed by a bearded man and a blonde woman, it went much faster than it should have, considering its aged sail. Then, for several seasons, it was missed, to reappear a couple of winters later. Come to find out that in those intervening years its co-pilots, professional shipwright Phil Shelton and his wife, veterinarian Amy Wood, had finished building the 42' Buehler-designed ketch IWALANI and sailed her around the world.
[Read More] [Collapse Text]

They then wrote (in Amy's voice) and published a 430-page book about it all. This three-against-the-sea saga (there was also a ship's cat) differs from others of its ilk in that the authors set out to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
World Voyagers is a must-read for anyone who dreams of sailing around the world, and also for anyone feeling guilty for not dreaming about sailing around the world. And for the rest of us, it is a witty travelogue with attitude-but doesn't ape the Paul Thoreaux/Jonathan Raban smarty-pants school of travel writing. It is surely quirky, and with travel books, quirky is good.
Phil and Amy trade places as captain every day. Both are in a second marriage, and overshadowing the story of the voyage are the worries about Phil's two boys, left in the care of their mother, who will not be sending any Christmas cards to Amy. Amy's devotion to Stewart, the ailing ship's cat, may strike even some cat lovers as slightly over the top, but her extraordinary candor saves the story from becoming a seagoing soap opera. Indeed, it would seem that nothing of a personal nature was off limits, including some disclosures which I cannot reveal, much less describe, given WoodenBoat's editorial prudery regarding matters of a sexual nature.
IWALANI, a traditional double-ended gaff-rigger on the outside, was stuffed with every manner of modern navigational device and appliance, including ice and ice cream makers, water maker, DVD player, computer, fax machine, vacuum cleaner, and so on. Of critical importance, Phil the wizard could fix almost all of them. But despite the comforts of home, and having prepared for all manner of peril, Phil and Amy still faced moments of real danger, as well as assorted nuisances and miseries, including Amy's chronic seasickness.
One cannot help but compare IWALANI's outfit with that of Joshua Slocum's SPRAY, whose cabin a century earlier boasted of little more than a stove and a onehanded tin alarm clock. A master at finding longitude by lunars, Slocum had a sextant but no chronometer. Presumably IWALANI had a sextant and at least a very good watch onboard, although I don't recall reading of them, what with the GPS, weather fax, ete.
GPS and dot.com money have created a population explosion of world-traveling yachts, although relatively few circumnavigate. Forty years ago when I sailed some of the same waters, and lay in some of the same anchorages, sighting a yacht was an event; now yachts are often an infestation. Sleepy little island villages have become crowded tourism destinations. Bureaucracy has exploded as well. And no island today is too remote not to have beaches littered with plastic rubbish; the tin and glass containers we once obliviously dumped overboard promptly sank from sight.
In his classic Sailing Alone Around the World, Slocum described an impromptu celebration in the Indian Ocean islands of Keeling Cocos, a tropical paradise of particular charm:

All that could get on their feet danced, while the babies lay in heaps in the corners of the room, content.to look on For music two fiddles screeched over and over again the good old tune, "We won't go home till morning." And we did not.

Of Keeling Cocos in 2002, we read in World Voyagers:

The following day we take the dinghy over to Home Island and find the local Internet cafe, a small hut with a huge satellite hookup. Several Malay teenaged girls are inside enjoying the air conditioning and listening to music. A few playing solitaire on the computer.

America, too, changed during the voyage; when IWALANI arrived back on the New England coast, post 9/11, she faced a $15,000 fine for not having been reported promptly.
Joshua Slocum's Martha's Vineyard neighbors claimed that he sailed alone around the world to escape his second wife. One can only wonder how the literature of the sea might have been changed had he met and married an irrepressible and adventuresome woman like Amy.
For that matter, Phil and Josh Slocum share many similar traits-lean, compact physiques; clipped beards; great skill as shipwrights and sailors; and methodical yet sardonically playful miens.
Hmmmm.
Bill Bunting is a regular WoodenBoat contributor

SOUNDINGS - Build the Boat, Sail the World

Artist/veterinarian Amy Wood and her wooden-boat builder husband Philip Shelton spent three years aboard gaff-rigged cutter Iwalani, designed and built by the couple.
[Read More] [Collapse Text]

B00KREVIEW.COM - Rod Clark

World Voyagers: The True story of a veterinarian, a Renaissance man, and Stewart the Cat, is a beautifully produced hardcover book, with a picture on the cover of the sailing boat, Iwalani, in which Amy, Phil and their feline friend Patrick (Editors Note. Should read "Stewart" not "Patrick")circumnavigated the world. (Iwalani means "Heavenly Seabird" in Hawaiian.) Also on the front cover are gold seals announcing that the book is the winner of an "Indie" (Independent Publishing book Awards) prize for travel fiction. The inside covers have maps that trace the incredible journey of Man, Woman and Cat, providing a useful and quick visual reminder to the reader of where the protagonists are geographically at any point in their journey.
[Read More] [Collapse Text]

Consider the cast of this unlikely odyssey. Sun bronzed adventurer Phil is a "Renaissance" man, a distinguished boat builder and teacher of boat building; a jack of all trades who can sail through a storm, rebuild an engine, weld a bowsprit, or fix a computer. His co-captain and wife Amy, is no stay at home Penelope. Professionally trained as a veterinarian, writer and artist, she is also the chronicler and narrator of the trip. Together the couple cross oceans, battle typhoons, flee pirates, see a ghost on a tropical island, dodge whales, confront lions and elephants (while in Africa) and wrestle with nautical plumbing. Given that both are strong personalities given to vigorous candor of expression, one can more easily imagine them sharing, say, a huge cattle ranch in Montana, than the claustrophobic confines of a sailing boat crossing the high seas. In such salty compression, how can romance or even civility be maintained?
A certain amount of conflict and carnage are inevitable (the unbelievable tensions of daily life at sea will keep readers on an uneven keel!), but incredibly, Philip and Amy get through it all without murder or unmanageable mayhem. In fact, their mutual respect and affection seem to grow as their shared voyage wraps the world. Together, they cross the Caribbean, pass through the Panama Canal, visit the Galapagos Islands, the Marquesas, Australia, Madagascar, South Africa and Brazil before returning to Maine. How did they do it? Their success was due in part to a talent they share for self-deprecating humor, and a habit of trying not to take themselves too seriously.
Of course, they had another secret weapon in their struggle to survive their adventure; their heroic cat Patrick, who provided sage and subtle counsel, onboard entertainment, and emotional bridgework between lesser crew members. In fact it is safe to say that Patrick was a vital "catalyst" in all that unfolded on the Iwalani; a fact subtly reinforced by his omnipresence in the text's photo gallery, and the fact that his distinguished shadow profile underlies every page number. Tragically, Patrick did not survive the entire journey-a loss that was deeply felt by all.
Circling the world in a sailboat is a perilous business, and writing and publishing a book about it is, in some ways, even more challenging. All of us have suffered through a slide show of someone else's summer vacation, and everyone imagines that their journey is special because it happens to them. Thankfully, in this case the "Indie" award for travel fiction is fully justified. The book documents a fascinating and unforgettable journey that is both geographic and personal, delivering a view of our planet that is beautiful, complex, and sometimes disturbing.
While it is clear that Philip has made major contributions in content, substance and (probably) production of this book; the point of view, word crafting, and lively artwork and photography are all clearly Amy's. As co-captain she was a full partner in running the boat and sharing the hard work of the adventure on a daily basis. In addition she served as chief cook, ship's doctor/vet and resident contrarian-ready to offer a conflicting opinion on any subject at any moment. (This, of course can be very useful at sea, where a multitude of problems need to be considered at a variety of angles!) Her veterinarian's fascination with living things, sea creatures, people, plants and microbes gives the reader a unique perspective on the natural world through which the Iwalani sails. Amy's natural curiosity also spills over into a fascination with people and places, and the book is laden with her candid appraisal of the personalities, cultures, and political viewpoints she encounters en route. Her opinions are forcefully expressed, but she is willing to amend her point of view on the basis of fresh information, and often, through her habit of playing devil's advocate to prod other people to think more deeply, she comes across more as thoughtful explorer than arbitrary pundit. In fact, in a round about (circling the planet) sort of way, she seems more interested in understanding the world than rendering judgment on it. Phil, as seen through Amy's loving gaze is a study in contrasts. On the one hand he is the intrepid sun-tanned adventurer who meets every crisis head on, and never blinks. The ultimate handyman, he has uncanny talents at making and repairing inanimate things. While he can be irritable and difficult, he can also be awesomely patient and forbearing. (Being trapped on a boat for months with a woman and a cat cannot be easy!) Finally, he has the kind of strength of character that allows him to both share and take responsibility for what happens to him and those close to him. Is this great literature? Who cares, it's a wonderful read. Clearly, Shelton and Wood were both very strong individuals to begin with, and they grew stronger over the course of this journey. And of course, their partnership has had another positive result. World Voyagers is a wonderful book that allows us to share Amy and Phil (and Patrick's) great adventure from the comfort of our armchairs, without having to actually endure the difficult, terrifying, and messy parts of it. Who could ask for anything better?