Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost At Sea (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
This is a momentous read describing Steven Callahan's 76 day survival at sea alone on a rubber life raft in 1982. After his boat sank about 100 miles west of the African coast, he traveled the currents to arrive at the West Indies over two and a half months later. The story forms on a razor's edge between life and death, hope and despair. There's a fair bit of psychology at play as Callahan describes the tenuous connections between his mind, body and spirit. Kept alive through skill, luck, and sheer force of will, Callahan is now able to share both practical and spiritual wisdom from this ordeal. Here are some of my favorite quotes: 1. Every time I decide on taking action, I run through the possible results to try to rationally decide on the best thing to do, but I am finding that all decisions are a two-edged sword, that any action may both benefit me and harm me. In the final analysis, everything is a gamble. pg. 762. It is a beauty surrounded by ugly fear . . . it is a view of heaven from a seat in hell. pg. 783. It was a promise never made, but it is being kept just the same. pg. 794. I have often thought that my instincts were the tools that allowed me to survive so that my "higher functions" could continue. Now I am finding that it is more the other way around. It is my ability to reason that keeps command and allows me to survive, and the things I am surviving for are those that I want by instinct: life, companionship, comfort, play. The dorados have all of that here, now. How I wish I could become what I eat. pg. 1785. I've continued to sail too. The sea remains the world's greatest wilderness. To my mind, voyaging through wildernesses, be they full of woods or waves, is essential to the growth and maturity of the human spirit. It is in the wilderness that you really learn who you are. It is in facing the challenges of the wilderness that the thickness of your wallet becomes irrelevant and your capabilities become the truer measure of your value. pg. 2346. In many ways I had been equally hopeless in life. When my ideals had not matched reality, I had fled reality. I could not accept my own limitations as a human being nor those of the people around me. I was a man alone and quite adrift well before the sea cast me into Rubber Ducky. No varnished hero took the ensuing voyage, and when I washed ashore it was with the gratitude that I had been given a chance to examine my weaknesses and learn to compensate for them. That was a far greater gift than any endurance record or human accolades.
Wow, what a good book to finish the year with! Every page had mind spinning with different thoughts of what was going to happen. Adrift is about a man named Steven Callahan who had one dream to cross the Atlantic Ocean by a boat he built himself. It was known as the Napoleon Solo. All alone for months to achieve his dream. Until he wakes up and finds out his boat got wrecked over night. Confused and panicking with the boat almost under water he gets the emergency life raft and marks day one for his life survival. Despite Callahan's best efforts, his body begins to deteriorate. He describes the heat being un-real and the salt water eating his flesh away. Everyday is a new challenge for him, whether its getting food, water, or even surviving the vicious sharks poking their noses on the edge of his raft. Steven thinks out of the world and creates and spear and dives in the freezing water shooting down the fish. With limited fresh water he reads a manual on how to survive and actually creates his on water desalination system that filters clean water that he can drink. Days pass, Weeks, and eventually months until around late April, Steven spots land. 24 hours later he is picked up by three fisherman who found home lying in his raft hopelessly. Callahan is saved and gets immediate medical attention and is sent back to his home town in Maine. The author did an amazing job created emotion and I actually felt that i was there with Steven on the raft throughout the whole book because it felt so real. The story never got boring or seemed like it just kept dragging on and on. Throughout the book I also enjoyed the themes which were starting from the bottom and getting to the top, and never giving up which I can relate to myself.I would definitely recommend this book to any reader. Honestly, this book teaches you a lesson about never giving up and trying to find a resolution for the situation you are in. Everything happens for a reason. What also adds a huge effect was this was actually a true story that changed a man named Steven Callahan's life forever.
What do You think about Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost At Sea (2002)?
This was one of the most riveting books I've ever read. Someone told me about this book back in the 1980s and I knew that I had to read it.Steven Callahan, an accomplished sailor, decided to build his own sailboat after he and his wife divorced. Once built, he sailed it to England where he intended to enter a boat race that takes place every year. The race is from England to the Caribbean.He is forced to drop out of the race because his boat is damaged in a storm. When it is repaired, he decides to follow the race course to the Caribbean on his own. One night when he is sleeping in his bunk, the boat is struck by an unknown object. The author says that it may have been a whale. His boat is taking on water and he if forced to abandon ship.For the next 79 days, he is forced to survive in a small life raft. As survival equipment fails and is repaired becomes less and less reliable, you wonder if he will be able to keep going. Of course you know he does because he lives to write the book.Anyone who wants to read a book about one mans determination to survive would be well advised to consider this one.
—Paul Spencer
Wow - quite a book to read, especially while on a cruise ship! Whenever I'm out on the water, I always think about the what if's. I like to keep track of the direction of the nearest land and the closest ships and such. It is amazing though how quickly any sign of civilization disappears even just while sailing in the Gulf of Mexico. Once you've gone on a cruise, it's easy to imagine how no one would be able to find you in the vast seas/oceans if you ended up in the water. Makes you really appreciate that we live on a water planet - even though most of us spend our lives on land. As an engineer and lover of science, I enjoyed reading the various workarounds he had to regularly come up with, as well as the amazing way the ocean (higher power?) provided for him to keep him alive. I couldn't quite give it 5 stars since I found some of the descriptions clunky and difficult to follow. I'd often read a convoluted section about some technique he came up with and have to reread it to figure out what he meant. It just felt like a good editor could have cleaned up some of the rough spots and made this into a 5 star read. Even so, it's definitely worth reading to experience and learn about his amazing journey of survival.
—Stacy
I read this book when I was in high school. I'm in my 30's now, and it remains one of the few books that has left a lasting impact on me.Think about it... 76 days. That's about two and a half months. Now stop for a minute, and think about what you were doing two and a half months ago. Now, think about what it would be like to be stuck in a raft somewhere in the Atlantic since then. CRAZY! ***TRUE STORY!!!!***Callahan, an avid sailor is sailing alone across the Atlantic. He gets caught in a bad storm, and his boat sinks. Luckily, he is able to get his life raft and a few survival tools together. He then spends the next 76 days floating around the ocean. Every day is a struggle to survive not just the physical but mental and emotional stresses, or rather HELL of being stuck in a raft in the ocean with no food, water, or way to navigate to civilization. He writes about how he was able to overcome this unimaginable ordeal by utilizing time-tested survival skills, along with physical and mental exercises to hold together what few pieces of his fitness and sanity remain.I would highly recommend this book to anybody, especially those who enjoy true stories of survival. Actually, I think this is the type of book that should be required reading in schools, but what do I know?
—John Dougherty
