Somewheres East of Suez

Third in Jones' works since he lost his leg (Outward Leg, The Improbable Voyage), continuing his marvelous voyages as the world's greatest sailor of small ships, this time sailing from Istanbul to Thailand by way of the Suez Canal and the Horn of Africa. Jones describes his 8000 miles over tropical seas. He sails his 38-foot trimaran Outward Leg (named after his missing leg) and pledges his present journey as a symbolic accomplishment "to inspire other handicapped people, especially youngsters, to reach for their own star and achieve their own ambitions despite the obstacles, natural and man-made, placed before them." Accompanying him and his German crewman, Thomas, is Svante, a youthful Swede they take on at their first stop in Israel. Throughout the first half of the voyage they keep a weather eye peeled for terrorists, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean; later, they must worry about refugees from famine-stricken African countries. Money evaporates, freshwater supplies are low. Not only does a violent monsoon cause the agonized Jones to toss overboard his entire collection of books to lighten the ship, but he is bedeviled otherwise by ferocious pain from his burning leg stump and the stumps of five broken teeth with burning roots.