The book tells of a time long before Chris Stewart's farm in Spain and even Ana is still in a girlfriend stage. In the first part of the book Chris gets a job offer of a lifetime, when his friend asks him to skipper a boat on the Mediterranean for a summer. Why, is anybody's guess, since Chris hasn't set a foot on a sailing boat in his life. But naturally he accepts.

In the second part Chris is invited on a sailing trip across the Northern Atlantic via Norway and Iceland all the way to Newfoundland in the footsteps of the viking Leif Eiriksson. The trip is considerably more dangerous and demanding than his previous summer on the Med, but luckily he lives to tell the tale.

One can only marvel at Chris Stewart's relaxed attitude to life. I think his writing style is just as relaxed and he is often very funny. However, the book is rather short and not quite as good as his previous ones. Somehow it left me wanting for more. I kept wondering, whether the stories had worked better as part of another book, like he did with his stories about sheep shearing in A Parrot in the Pepper Tree. As it is, I did enjoy reading about his exploits with sailing and spent a couple of happy hours on a rainy July day with this book, most of the time glad to be far far away from the sea myself... ( )