A Marriage at Sea

by Sophie Elmhirst ★★★☆☆

In A Marriage at Sea, first time author Sophie Elmhirst delves into the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, an oddly-paired British couple who decide to sail from England to New Zealand in the 1970s. Neither is an accomplished sailor, and, shockingly, Maralyn can't even swim. Yet both feel a disconnection from society that makes the thought of consolidating all their worldly possessions into a smallish sailboat an appealing choice.

Maurice is a bit of an odd duck, an awkward loner who could become obsessive about things, with an innate ability to singularly focus on a task, especially when it involves research, study, and perfecting a skill. Maralyn made for an unlikely companion for Maurice—more gregarious, more social, and by many accounts out of Maurice's league. But they were drawn together, and they aligned fiercely on their vision of a future together. Neither wanted children, and the adventure of the sailing to New Zealand was a bizarre connection point on which they landed. Maralyn longed for adventure. For her, the voyage was a chance to "sail away from all the boring stuff" and create a new, more exciting life. Maurice, on the other hand, treated the trip as a project full of challenging tasks that he could complete. He spent five years designing and overseeing the construction of their boat, the Auralyn, while teaching himself to navigate by the stars.

As part of their custom design of the Auralyn, they made the choice to "have no radio transmitter or extraneous electronic devices of any kind." Maurice insisted he wanted to "preserve their freedom from outside interference", and in order to feel truly alone on the ocean, he "chose to sail the old way, by his wits and the stars." It would turn out, of course, to be a horrendously poor decision.

The book opens with their encounter with a whale, leaving them stranded on a life raft and dinghy and the Auralyn at the bottom of the Pacific. Because of the detail author Elmhirst is able to provide of the encounter, we know that at least one of the Baileys survives the encounter, and Elmhirst does a fine job recreating the scenario and time at sea from the Baileys' meticulously kept notes and diaries. Given their world shrinks to a vary narrow landscape (their two small vessels) and a very narrow focus—survival and rescue—the number of things that can happen within those small confines are relatively limited. Elmhirst fills in the "dead air", so to speak, with stories of the time leading up to the voyage and the accident, as well as the Baileys' determined plans for their life following rescue. Maralyn, in particular, was indefatigable in her believe that they would be found, despite the unlikeliness of a ship encountering them in the vast Pacific.

It's well-researched, and an interesting look into a truly bizarre couple. But it's also not a book that moved me in a way that I would feel compelled to recommend it. It's perfectly acceptable and an interesting story, but nothing much more than that, leaving it as a solid 3-star read for me.