Available:*
Library | Shelf Number | Material Type | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Hattiesburg Library | 910.9165 ARCHIBALD | Book | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
"Solitude is terrifying and awe-inspiring in Alone. " -- The Wall Street Journal
In April 2013, fifty-year-old Brett Archibald was on board a surf-charter boat, making a night-time crossing of the remote Mentawai Strait off Sumatra, Indonesia. In the middle of a storm, ill with severe food poisoning, he blacked out. When he came to, he found himself in the raging sea, sixty miles from shore. As Brett saw the lights of his boat disappearing into the darkness, it became clear that no one had seen him fall, and that no one would hear his shouts for help. He was alone in the ocean.
It would be eight hours before his friends realized he was missing. At that point a frantic search began for a single man somewhere in thousands of square miles of heaving waves. The rough weather meant that no planes or helicopters could assist in the search. According to the experts, he should have died within ten to fourteen hours.
Instead, Brett battled Portuguese man o' war and jellyfish, sharks, seagulls, and the stormy seas for more than 28 hours. Alone is the remarkable tale of his miraculous survival and rescue. It is also the story of what it takes to defy extraordinary odds and the incredible power of the human spirit.
Author Notes
BRETT ARCHIBALD is an international businessman and entrepreneur. Over the course of 35 years he has built an impressive global career, which included directorship positions with a worldwide hospitality and travel corporation in Johannesburg, Sydney, Hong Kong, and London. He is currently the chairman of an events and hospitality company, as well as an inspirational speaker on the national and international circuits. He lives in Cape Town with his wife and their two children. Alone: Lost Overboard in the Indian Ocean is his autobiographical narrative about surviving 28 hours in the sea by himself.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this intense memoir, Archibald describes how in the middle of the night in 2013, he fell into the Indian Ocean while vomiting off the side of a boat he and his friends had chartered for a birthday surfing trip. For the next 28 hours he struggled to survive as he fought off a shark, jellyfish, and birds and struggled with his own fears and regrets. His friends discovered his disappearance eight hours after he fell overboard and launched a rescue effort that was hindered by bad weather and a lack of emergency resources in the area. Luckily, they happened on a group of Australians who also had hired a boat for their own surfing adventure; that boat's captain, "a hostage to his past" who had saved himself from his own "demons," saw it as his duty to find Archibald. The narrative approach can be disconcerting, however: Archibald writes in the first person as he describes his struggles in the water, then switches to third person when writing about himself from his friends' and family's perspectives ("Brett was notable, even admired, for his high-spirited misbehavior"). Nevertheless, this survival tale pairs action with emotion and feels ready-made for the big screen. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
It was supposed to be a fun outing, a group of middle-aged friends on a chartered boat, crossing the Mentawai Strait in the Indian Ocean. A birthday celebration. Then Brett, stricken with food poisoning as a storm at sea raged around the boat, passed out and fell overboard. And nobody on the boat noticed for several hours. Brett spent the next day and a little more in the ocean, desperately trying to stay alive. Alternating between chapters detailing his life-and-death struggle in the water and chapters about the race-against-time rescue effort, the book is a gripping and sometimes emotionally draining account of survival against almost insurmountable odds. Archibald is a graceful storyteller, as adept at describing the physical challenges of staying alive (such as, for example, a brush with a shark) as he is at describing the mental challenges. There is a robust literature about people surviving alone at sea Steven Callahan's Adrift (1986), Jonathan Franklin's 438 Days (2015), and Matt Lewis' Last Man Off (2014), among others and Archibald's compelling account fits in very nicely.--Pitt, David Copyright 2017 Booklist