Read if you like:
📚 Memoir-style nonfiction
🌊Survival-at-sea stories
🔥 True tales of endurance and grit
❤️ Relationship dynamics under extreme pressure
✨ Vivid, immersive narrative nonfiction
In 1973, British couple Maurice and Maralyn Bailey set sail from Panama on their small yacht, headed toward a new life in New Zealand. Just weeks into the journey, a whale struck their boat, leaving it sinking in the middle of the Pacific. They abandoned ship with little more than a life raft, a dinghy, and what supplies they could grab in minutes. For the next 118 days, they drifted thousands of miles, surviving on rainwater, raw fish, and sheer determination.
Sophie Elmhirst’s A Marriage at Sea tells their story in vivid, gripping detail — but this isn’t just about a shipwreck. It’s about two people bound together in marriage and survival, each responding to disaster in their own way.
Maralyn is the quiet powerhouse of the story. She keeps order, rationing food, maintaining routine, and refusing to let despair take over. Maurice, on the other hand, is unpredictable — inventive at times, frustrating at others, and often caught in his own mental storms.
I was blown away by Maralyn’s strength — not just to keep going in brutal, almost unimaginable conditions, but to keep going when her partner seemed to be doing the opposite. It’s wild to see how two people who love each other deeply can react so differently when pushed to their absolute limits.
I’ll be honest — it was a slow start for me. I wasn’t sure I was going to love it, and I found Maurice a little too quirky for my liking. But once the wreck happened, I couldn’t put it down. The survival details were fascinating, and I found myself hungry for even more post-rescue information than the book gave. Still, this was such a unique and captivating read — very different from what I normally pick up, and absolutely worth it.
If you want to read, you can find copies of the book here:
Hardcover
eBook
