Book review: Clawmarks Down the Jetty by Jill Harris

Jill Harris recounts her and her husband Bungie's eight-year sailing adventure starting in 1978, living aboard and sailing a 34-foot steel-hulled yacht with minimal equipment. The memoir covers their route across the Tasman, up the Queensland coast, through Indonesia and the Indian Ocean to South Africa, then up the east coast of Africa, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean (including time in Cyprus when Jill had a baby), down West Africa to the Gambia, and across to the Caribbean. Harris writes candidly about her ambivalence toward sailing, her enjoyment of landfall, and the social and cultural encounters that shaped their travels. The narrative balances accessible sailing detail (useful to sailors) with broader travel and adventure storytelling and warm portraits of the people they met.