Windsong: A Great Tale of Adventure Across the Atlantic by Sail

Book Review: Windsong by Shane Granger

Version: ebook by author

I've written about the harrowing tales in the life of Shane Granger before in The Vega Adventures. In it, he survived a category 5 cyclone (hurricane) and the 2004 tsunami that hit Sumatra and surrounding lands and islands and discovered a mission in life: delivering life-saving medical and educational supplies to the spice islands off Indonesia. Now Granger is using his amazing storytelling skills to tell about some of his other life-changing adventures. His newest book is Windsong.

You will join Granger as a down-on-his-fortunes young man walking a quiet beach in West Africa who stumbles on a half buried hull. Curiosity gets the better of him and before he knows it, he is consumed with a desire to figure out why a sailboat is half buried on a tropical beach, and he becomes almost obsessed with uncovering the truth. The locals think he is crazy, but many come to admire his determination and soon they begin to aid his quest until one day he has unburied the hull to find a decent old ship that's actually worth salvaging. 

And so begins the tale of a man and what will become dreams of restoring an old sailboat to its former glory and a sailing jaunt across the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way he will meet an old boat builder, a young boat repairman, several willing accomplices with supplies their owners won't miss, a couple of lovely ladies, amiable sailors willing to share their food, and one large great white shark down on its luck. 

Granger will restore the sailboat and have several run ins with nature before he actually launches Windsong westward, where nature will do its best to delay landfall in Brazil. But this is ultimately a story of the journey to get there. And Granger will learn a lot about himself as a sailor and a man along that journey. His story is full surprises and interesting twists about a trip that should have taken a couple of weeks but lasted more than a month. And then when he got there, there were even more surprises you will never guess, including a hilarious encounter with a pope.

It seems Granger never makes a port without finding an amazing woman he falls madly in love with, and one that causes him troubles he can do well enough without, thank you. He barely escapes one in West Africa only to meet two in Brazil, one who risks his life and freedom. 

Windsong is available as an ebook only through Granger's website, Vega 1892, where sales are for fundraising to support his mission to bring medical and educational supplies to the remote spice islands off Indonesia and the Banda Sea. Also on the ebook page is The Vega Adventures and soon, The Sahara Adventure. All great adventure reads.

Another Voyage, a Different Dream: Sailing Yarn of the Mind

Book Review: Another Voyage, a Different Dream by Richard Twillman

I began reading this book with one perception and ended it with quite another.

As a fan of sailing adventures - in particular, Napoleon-era age of sail sagas - I love a good sea yarn. More recently I've enjoyed more modern tales of sailing adventures, recently reading The Vega Adventures by Shane Granger and now Another Voyage, a Different Dream by Richard Twillman.

Another Voyage is really quite another voyage. It starts out with a young man who loves life aboard a beautiful sailboat, where he lives, by and large by the circumstances of his life. When that is threatened, he decides to take off for parts unknown and - he hopes - undiscoverable. But then he meets up with a man and woman who take him on a different kind of voyage than he could ever have imagined. It gradually changes from a sea adventure to an escape into mysticism, which in the end saves him.

Author Twillman takes the reader on a well-crafted journey across the sea, among tropical islands, and through the mind. At times you aren't certain where he is headed, but you want to keep reading to see where he will take you, moved by his narrative and the images he paints through his vivid language.

If you like a good sea tale, or if you enjoy sailing yarns, this book would be a good read. If you're into  voyages of the mind, you likely will enjoy this read, too. It's available both on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.

The Vega Adventures: A Reading That Will Raise Your Spirits

Book Review: The Vega Adventures by Shane Granger

Vega is a large, weighty sailing vessel with an undersized motor. It’s 125 years old, specially built by Norwegian craftsmen to haul bulky loads like cement across the North Sea. But in 2004 Shane Granger and Meggi Macoun took her on a different kind of mission that has become what Shane calls in his amazing new novel, The Vega Adventures.

The story briefly takes you through Vega’s amazing history – why she was built and by whom, how she evolved, and how she lived out her latter work years eventually dragging for glacial stones off the North Sea floor before being bought and then abandoned by a forlorn seafarer.

Then Shane and Meggi restored Vega and took her on their own amazing sea adventure across the Indian Ocean, which begins the book with a life-and-death struggle in a horrific hurricane. They lose the rudder and all control, only just managing to survive as they finally make safe harbor in the Seychelles, where they make repairs and then set off again, destination Malaysia.

Finally basking in warm sunny Malaysia, Shane and Meggi are enjoying some time on land and figuring out how to refit Vega's interior accommodations, when the infamous tsunami of December 26, 2004, hits, generated by a 9.3 earthquake off the shores of Sumatra. The first hints come as swirling currents, but then the waves arrive lifting boats and docks out to sea and sending everyone into a panic. But what they and their boating neighbors go through is nothing compared to what others in more remote places have suffered, the death toll reaching into the hundreds of thousands. That story leads to the Vega crew's real adventure.

Their sailing vessel perfect for hauling large volumes, the crew agrees to take 22 tons of badly needed food and medical supplies to the victims of the tsunami. When they see the horrific damage and helpless victims among the island nations where they deliver supplies, it creates a new vision for their lives. Shane and Meggi refit Vega not just for leisure sailing of the high seas, but they begin using it to bring the basic necessities of life to the most remote villages off Indonesia, people shut off from the world who have no access to doctors or medicine, schools or school supplies, even farm implements or seeds. Their mission in life will be to use Vega to bring life to the islands.

The Vega Adventures is the true life story of a couple and their small crew facing the dangers of life on the sea making year-long voyages to raise medical supplies, midwife kits, education packages, soccer (football) balls, backpacks full of school supplies, sewing kits, farm implements, vegetable seeds, and more, and then deliver them to tiny isolated villages on remote islands. Interspersed in the lively narrative are interesting side tales about sailing and sailing experiences, individuals on the islands and their experiences, and the sights, sounds, smells, and feels they experienced during their voyages.

Shane Granger is the author and his easy-going, humorous narrative style brings the story to life. I’m used to reading the age-of-sail Napoleon-era war-at-sea novels and Shane gives every bit of accurate detail in this story that genre often provides in its novels. What’s different here is that the war is between humans and nature, and there’s more about peace and the beneficence of the human spirit than of war itself. The reading will raise your spirits.

The other thing I love about Granger’s The Vega Adventures is the short chapters, which breaks the story into nice little sets. That makes it a breezy read, helped along by Granger's friendly, jaunty tone. And it also makes it easier to keep your place in the book! Enjoy.

Revised May 23, 2020.

(The Vega Adventures available at Alibris.com,)

(c) 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.