Customer Reviews

Ice Bird: The Classic Story of the First Single-Handed Voyage to Antarctica

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4 star:		(1)
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Great story of brave Doctor who was first to sail ALONE to Antarctic....with analog watch, and no GPS! ! !

At some point, almost everyone who ventures out to sea, or even hoists a sail and (briefly) ties their fate to the wind, dreams themselves back in the days of wooden ships and iron men. We wonder how our mettle would stand-up to the unforgiving challenges of sail in earlier centuries.

And while the harshness of the sea has not changed, technology has increased our mastery over it tremendously. Fiberglass boats are water-tight. Navigation requires less skill than ownership of a GPS, while the elements, are better tamed by Gortex than wool or linen. One begins to wonder whether there any real adventures to be.

Well, Dr. Lewis had a remarkable adventure 40 years ago, a time of primitive technology by today's standards. His immediate, engaging style of writing and his selection of anecdotes permit us to travel with him on his solo voyage to Antarctica. For example, when planning his trip, he finds a Russian chart which warns mariners that 30-ft waves are common at one point along his route. He expected this, but then realized that a Russian chart would not use the English system of measurement to convey wave height. Lewis's "30-foot waves" are actually 30-meter monsters, 100 feet!!!

Does that catch your imagination? Do you wonder what sailing through the roaring 40s and howling 50s is like in a small boat with huge seas and ferocious storms, constantly on-guard for icebergs, out of touch and beyond rescue, all in a wet sleeping bag and without dry clothes?

If it doesn't, then this is not the book for you. But if you like sailing stories; if you want to come as close as possible to freezing storms and terror at sea at home while remaining safe and dry, then look no further.

Amazing and gripping story! One of the best I've read. I couldn't put the book down, especially the 1st part where he breaks his mast and somehow continues day after day basically without much hope of surviving. One of the greatest sailing journeys ever perhaps. This was in 1972 before sailors had the technology so common place now.

The reviewer R. Queiroz above, who mentions Amyr Klink, is completely clued out! On the planet I live on 1972 DID occur before 1989. Did this person even read David Lewis's book?

The story and the book may be very good, but this is NOT the first single-handed sail trip to Antarctica. Brazilian explorer Amyr Klink sailed alone to Antarctica on his self-built 50' sail boat in the summer of 1989. He spent the whole winter there with the boat locked up in the frozen sea of Dorian Bay by the English station Port Lockroy and, 13 months later, he sailed non-stop from there all the way to the Arctic Circle and back to Brazil. THAT was a first.