To the Baltic with Bob: An Epic Misadventure

Griff Rhys Jones

Jan 2005 · Penguin UK

About this ebook

In the summer of 2002, two profoundly amateur sailors, Griff and Bob, set off in an elderly yacht for Russia, because, on the map, it looked easier than sailing to Cornwall. They took Baines with them, as he knew how to mend the engine. And this is their story.

Over four long months of applied bickering in a vessel no bigger than a London taxi, they visited most of the geographically interesting restaurants on the Baltic seaboard. They sailed, over, and, even at one point, onto the mysterious heart of the Nordic world. They pushed themselves to the very limits of human endurance, before finally agreeing to wash their sleeping bags on a cool cycle at number six.

To the Baltic with Bob is the full account of their stirring journey through the longest heat wave the frozen north has ever suffered; of three men in search of the answer to a troubling question: can you really outmanoeuvre a mid-life crisis by running away to sea?

Ratings and reviews

This is probably the most boring book I've ever read, but then I'm no yachtsman. I bought it because it came under the wrongly categorised 'travel' genre expecting to read some interesting stuff about the cities we're visiting later this year on a Baltic cruise. All i read about was run down concrete buildings, dirty moorings, greasy...i only skimmed it to the end after 300 pages because I'd wasted £5.46 on it.

About the author

Griff Rhys Jones was born in 1953. He was educated at Brentwood school and Cambridge University. On the way to becoming a writer he worked as a security guard, a petrol-pump attendant and a television star.