Wendy Hinman, Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey (Seattle, WA: Salsa Press) 2012.

After Reading Windy Hinman's account of the adventures of her husband and his family from before she married him, I couldn't resist ordering a copy of her earlier book about the adventures she and her husband undertook in their 31 foot boat, that fit their budget better than it fit the size of their bodies and the needs of ocean cruising. Nonetheless, they learned to turn teamwork and resourcefulness into a lifestyle of adventure, sometimes stopping to work to earn enough money to keep their travels alive as they sailed around the Pacific Ocean. They even visited the island where her husband and his family shipwrecked when he was a teenager.

Hinman is an excellent storyteller and she certainly enables the reader to enter into the drama of their adventures without even getting our feet wet. The stories of a nearly 50-day open water crossing, of the storms they chased and missed, their adventures in trading for the necessities of life, and jobs that they did in order to keep things together and continue their adventure are all engaging and make it difficult to put the book down.

This is a great read for an armchair adventurer and someone who dreams of buying their own boat and heading off to the tropics. The doses of reality that the book offers keep one from quitting one's day job too soon, but the book is a joy to read full of humor and adventure.