A Marriage at Sea has been on my hold list for awhile because it was published in the UK before it became available here in the US. It details the story of Maurice and Maralyn, a couple who set off to sail from the UK to New Zealand in 1973 but their boat was struck by a sperm whale and sank near the Galapagos Islands. How they managed to survive the ensuing months (!) adrift in the Pacific forms the crux of the book. I love seafaring stories and stories of shipwrecks and being lost at sea and found this entry into the canon of these types of tales fascinating. Maurice doesn’t come across as an especially likeable man, but the two were devoted to one another — indeed, it’s how they survived — and by his own admission, he didn’t seek the favor of others. Although there is a portion of the book given over to what became of them in their later years, I do wish there was more detail given to that, such as why, after all their effort to permanently leave England, they ended up settled back there and supposedly living the kind of life they shunned early in their marriage. There were also several instances where the author references photographs being taken, but frustratingly, there were none included in the book (aside from one closeup of the couple), or even a map of their voyage. Thankfully there’s the Internet, but still, I would have appreciated those additions in a book of this sort.