The Five-Year Voyage

From the author of Three Years in a 12-Foot Boat comes an expedition of even grander scope, this time with Ginny, his brave sweetheart. Together they fashion a tiny craft in which they row and sail from Florida to the Caribbean along the coast of Central and South America. Though storm-battered and robbed at knife-point, they ascend the Orinoco River to a remote steam connecting with the Amazon. They descend this to Manaus, then climb another tributary south through Bolivia. After a portage they transit the world’s largest swamp, then float down the Paraguay to Argentina. Returning via other rivers, they pause to have a son. Steve sails homeward alone to safeguard baby George, but shipwrecks in surf. Written with humor and keen observation, this is the honest account of an unprecedented odyssey.

Stephen Ladd is a city planner, voyager, and memoirist. He is the author of Three Years in a 12-Foot Boat, in which he rowed and sailed to South America and back in a tiny boat of his own design. In 2009 he teamed up with now-wife Virginia to sail to Argentina and back, largely via the Amazon and related rivers, in a 21-footer, stopping to have a baby in Brazil. That book is entitled The Five-Year Voyage: Exploring Latin American Coasts and Rivers.