Under Wide and Starry Skies: 50 Sailing Destinations in Seas Less Travelled. Nicholas Coghlan. Adlard Coles. Forthcoming Canadian Publication: May 6th, 2025.
This beautiful book is replete with colour photographs, maps and the narrative you need to sail – in actuality or imaginatively – to these most rarely visited places on the globe. You will gain the geographic knowledge, the formal knowledge (of charting, entry and bureaucratic formalities, weather information and reference books) as well as helpful insights into the history and provisioning opportunities in the destinations. You will also meet some of the inhabitants that Nicholas and partner Jenny Coghlan met in their travels to these diverse locales.
The book is helpfully organized into five large geographic sections: I – North Pacific and North America; II – South Pacific; III – Indian Ocean and Africa; IV – South Atlantic; and V – North Atlantic and the Caribbean.
In the Introduction Nick states the formula he uses to make the information easy to understand, even for a beginning Offshore Adventurer. He gives map and geographic information and recounts his and Jenny’s own adventures in getting to the destination; forwards a brief essay describing the place, history and people (if there are any); discusses any security concerns; and gives a story of their own adventures including “mistakes made and lessons learned”.
Of all the 50 locations highlighted, Traversay III had sailed to or stopped at only 13 of them. Of those places we shared, I discovered that we often had totally different – yet still memorable – experiences, demonstrating what makes offshore cruising always unique and exciting.
Nick and Jenny completed a circumnavigation part way through their travels at a location west of Mexico between Isla Guadaloupe and Clarion. I was fascinated to read that they saw elephant seals here – a species we had only seen in the much farther south and colder South Georgia in the South Atlantic.
We had been to see the gigantic bears in Geographic Harbor Alaska and had heard about the death of a self-styled ‘Bear Whisperer’, but in Nick’s book I read the definitive story of how he and his girlfriend lost their lives to a local ‘brown’ bear (Grizzly in Canada).
In Puerto Eden, Chile, we ate meals at Dona Maria’s and watched the inauguration of President Obama on her television in the company of a celebrating American family, but missed seeing the edible seaweed Dona had been drying – her alternative food source.
Caleta Brecknock, Patagonia, Chile, #16 of Nick’s 50 destinations, was also visited by Traversay III. The immensity of the landscape was so fantastic; you can barely see our little boat in the lower right side of the photo. We were alone for a few days, then a BBC-chartered vessel arrived. We shared our dive photos with the photographer and got ‘mud’ maps for Antarctica… then made our plans to sail to Antarctica.
We did not see Robert Louis Stevenson’s epitaph printed on his tombstone in American Samoa, the poem from which Nick’s title Under Wide and Starry Skies is derived. Nor did we encounter the women of Twin Waterfall Bay in Vanuatu performing their bespoke Water Music while washing their clothes under the falls. However, I feel lucky to never have had one of Jenny’s experiences: while she was off-watch and relaxing with a book in the cabin, a curious colourfully-striped poisonous sea snake slid along her bare thighs! It must have come up through the cockpit drains and then wriggled up the companionway and into the boat.
One of their opportunities, which even well-travelled world sailors rarely get to, was Alkwasir Island near Khartoum Sudan in mid-Africa. This was during a posting with the Canadian Diplomatic Corp. Nick and Jenny relaxed with sailing during a continuous and terrifying spate of ‘terror-tourism’. His experiences are described in his earlier book entitled Collapse of a Country. We owe thanks to our diplomats who carry the burden of extending Canada’s good name and the possibility of a new life in our country to some war-torn and murderous postings. Nick describes the relief of leaving work and getting to the Blue Nile Sailing Club (established in 1926). The Club is poised at the junction between the Blue Nile and the White Nile. Here they competed on a Khartoum One Design – boats designed by Morgan Giles and fashioned from recycled galvanized steel to include buoyancy tanks, a retractable centreboard, a Bermuda-rigged mainsail and a jib.
Do not be like us and regret missing some of the many special places listed in this book. We had concentrated more on the cold and windy places and by-passed the world’s warmer and more accessible beauties!
The index makes it easy to reference the destinations that are of particular interest to you and your shipmate(s).
The book will be released in Canada on May 6th, 2025, so keep an eye out for when it is available in a bookstore near you! I don’t recommend getting the eBook version, because much of the book’s information is in the maps, and inspiration comes from the colour photos. The publisher, Adlard Coles, is feted in the nautical community for publishing the best information on a variety of marine subjects.
Nick is offering a special discount to BCA members: to get the Promo Code and place the order, one will need to log in to the BCA website, go to ‘Tradewinds Buy and Sell’ and then to ‘Discounts Offered to BCA Members’.
This book would make a wonderful gift to parents, family, or friends who are mistrustful of your ambition to leave your job, house, and belongings in order to sail your little boat off into the large and possibly dangerous world. They may well spend hours contemplating possible adventures you want to take, and which they can now share in the comfort of their smaller world!
Under Wide and Starry Skies will create dreams; if you are fortunate enough to own a sailboat, it will inspire you to GO. If you think your boat is too small, take courage from Nick and Jenny’s experience of having completed the described experiences in two small 27-foot sailboats: first Tarka the Otter, and now their current boat, Bosun Bird. As Nicholas states: “Don’t dally too long. It’s always later than you think.”
Nick and Jenny, July 2015, when we had the pleasure of meeting them at Amook Island on the west coast of Kodiak Island.
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