Praise for Blue Water Women
“In Blue Water Women, Gina takes you from the initial dream of cruising to deciding if it’s for you, the practical realities and various ways you can do it. Lots of the wisdom comes from her 15 years aboard, but as well from the 40 very experienced women she interviewed about their own life aboard. There’s no one right way to cruise; you can make it your own style as these women’s experiences show.
This is an exceptional book for anyone thinking of cruising, men and women alike, but it particularly caters to the questions that so many women seem to have. Even with eleven years of cruising, I enjoyed reading it and found myself nodding in agreement as well as picking up tidbits of wisdom.”
“This book is replete with good advice, ideas and information from interviews with 40 Blue Water Women, from novice to professional. It is a comprehensive guide for sailors and I would recommend the book to anyone contemplating making their first blue water passage or considering a career at sea.”
“The best sailing book for women I’ve ever read. I just wish I’d read it before I set sail over the Pacific!”
“Not only a guide to passage making, this book is also a reliable technical reference. And not just for women!”
“This book provides an entertaining yet pragmatic look at how to live your best life on the open water.”
“Just finished reading it. I could really relate to it in so many ways and am sure it will be such a help with valuable information for those considering the cruising life as well as for those of us who are doing it in a variety of ways. Thanks so much, Gina.”
“A New Resource for Would-be Offshore Women Sailors
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We have met many men who would really like to involve their women-folk in offshore travel and I feel this book would be a great assist.
I have been really impressed with the BCA and their help for boat-owners who are contemplating their first long offshore voyage. I wish I had known about it over 25 years ago before Larry and I started on our first trip to Hawaii. It’s a wonderful organization and it offers all the right service and educational opportunities for people to learn what they need to know to get going.
But now there’s a resource which is just for women. Gina de Vere interviewed a lot of women and the book proves that there are as many ways to be a “Cruising Woman” as there are individual women. It gives basic facts about all the things you need to know but after that you can be free to make the adventure your own in your own way. You can enjoy the variety and excitement of ever-changing destinations … learning the language and making new friends here and there. Or you can settle in and enjoy being ‘at home’ in a new country while sharing the experiences with other like-minded cruisers. The experience will be what you make of it.
As the famous Lin Pardey says in her preface to the book:
“ As willing as men are to encourage women afloat, they have different concerns, different ways of handling stress, different strengths and weaknesses, different ways of teaching, and most had father-and-mentor-instilled mechanical skills to draw on as they learned to handle and maintain a boat.”
This book would be a valuable resource in the BCA ‘toolkit’. Hopefully it could be recommended to newcomers to our group.”