A true life adventure story, this is a recounting of Dana and Ginger Lamb's travels down the Pacific coast from San Diego, along Baja, California, across the Gulf of California, down Mexico and Central America to the Panama Canal. They traveled in a small boat which they made themselves; a cross between a canoe, kayak and sailboat, setting out in October of 1933. There are quite a few black and white photos to illustrate their many adventures.

Oh my! It's almost impossible to believe they survived this trip. It's like reading an adventure written by Jules Verne, only with even more hair-raising predicaments and disasters. In fact, I believe that some of the stories are a bit romanticized, such as the seeking and almost finding of "pirate's treasures" and "lost cities." The Lamb's strike me as being story tellers of the old school, who know how to make a tale, if not out of whole-cloth (there is plenty of verification of the trip and many of the events), at least a bit more exciting than the reality. That being said, their reality was far more excitement than I ever hope to see in my lifetime!

This couple wanted to test themselves. They wanted to know what they had in them and if it was the stuff that would enable them to survive. What they don't expound on are their qualifications for this journey. They mention that they had been preparing and training for two years. They don't specify what that training entailed beyond target practice. One can infer from the text and situations survived, that it included engineering, food preparation, sewing, hide tanning, medical training, navigation and many other skills which most folks don't possess in their day-to-day lives.

The Lambs found that their curiosity, work ethics and flexibility served them well. They were able to adapt to their surroundings, often taking advice and cues from the natives they met, to survive the hoards of insect perils, sun and heat, and lack of potable water. They purposely began their trip with less than $5.00 so that they would be depending on the land and their skills, refusing many offers of help along the way, but gladly accepting it when they were at the end of their own resources.

In fact, that was one of the lessons they learned; that sometimes people survive because they are a community. Another lesson they took away from their trip was the value of hard work. Not hard work to save and scrape so that one could "one day" enjoy a time of no more work; but the value of work itself for the human mind. Work is what makes rest enjoyable. This is a book full of little revelations they had, sprinkled in amongst sheer terror, exhaustion and excitement. I loved their descriptions of the people and lands they met, of how they mentally overcame the obstacles they faced before they could physically conquer, and the details of their survival methods. ( )