Sebastian Smith has been a foreign correspondent for 30 years, for AFP, The Economist, The Times and others. He has covered wars, natural disasters, countless elections, and stories of human life from the Amazon rainforest to Siberia. At the age of 30 he took to the sea, and since then boats and voyaging have been at the heart of life with his wife and daughters. He has written for SAIL in the US and Practical Boat Owner in the UK.

Sebastian Smith's advice on running away to sea is as sound as eight bells, but he gives us so much more – a chart of how life can be lived to the full, 'as trespassers, forever tiptoeing in wonder through the house of God'.Smith goes beyond telling us how. He also tells us why, and nobody does it better.

• List of boxes Introduction: my story – your guide PART ONE Aquila: the escape capsule1 The dream 2 Kitchen table voyage 3 ‘Do you realise?’ 4 Miracle 5 ‘Out there’ 6 Child’s play 7 The schooner 8 The seahorse 9 The Trap PART TWO Shamaal 2: losing sight of land 10 The Odysseus problem 11 Faith 12 Tea for two 13 Nightriders 14 Hallucinations 15 The sea at the middle of the earth 16 ‘Gens de la mer’ 17 By the wind 18 ‘A double plane accident’ 19 Shelter from the tempest 20 A weather forecast 21 The end of the endless voyage 22 A gentle zephyr 23 Small journeys, big journeys 24 The goodbye PART THREE Moon River: the dream maker 25 The Statue of Liberty 26 Back of the napkin 27 Dream boat 28 Dream maker 29 On a cloud 30 The map of breakdowns 31 No rest for the wicked 32 Reveries 33 Into the blue 34 Beauty and the bucket 35 The middle of nowhere 36 The beasts of the sargassum 37 Debris 38 Wild islands 39 Fugitives 40 Back in time 41 The whisky drinker’s dream 42 Into the bolongs 43 The hippy and the pilgrim 44 Pyjamas in the storm 45 The Christmas trades 46 Paradise 47 The way back

Sebastian Smith has been a foreign correspondent for 30 years, for AFP, The Economist, The Times and others. He has covered wars, natural disasters, countless elections, and stories of human life from the Amazon rainforest to Siberia. At the age of 30 he took to the sea, and since then boats and voyaging have been at the heart of life with his wife and daughters. He has written for SAIL in the US and Practical Boat Owner in the UK.

Sebastian Smith's advice on running away to sea is as sound as eight bells, but he gives us so much more – a chart of how life can be lived to the full, 'as trespassers, forever tiptoeing in wonder through the house of God'.Smith goes beyond telling us how. He also tells us why, and nobody does it better.

• List of boxes Introduction: my story – your guide PART ONE Aquila: the escape capsule1 The dream 2 Kitchen table voyage 3 ‘Do you realise?’ 4 Miracle 5 ‘Out there’ 6 Child’s play 7 The schooner 8 The seahorse 9 The Trap PART TWO Shamaal 2: losing sight of land 10 The Odysseus problem 11 Faith 12 Tea for two 13 Nightriders 14 Hallucinations 15 The sea at the middle of the earth 16 ‘Gens de la mer’ 17 By the wind 18 ‘A double plane accident’ 19 Shelter from the tempest 20 A weather forecast 21 The end of the endless voyage 22 A gentle zephyr 23 Small journeys, big journeys 24 The goodbye PART THREE Moon River: the dream maker 25 The Statue of Liberty 26 Back of the napkin 27 Dream boat 28 Dream maker 29 On a cloud 30 The map of breakdowns 31 No rest for the wicked 32 Reveries 33 Into the blue 34 Beauty and the bucket 35 The middle of nowhere 36 The beasts of the sargassum 37 Debris 38 Wild islands 39 Fugitives 40 Back in time 41 The whisky drinker’s dream 42 Into the bolongs 43 The hippy and the pilgrim 44 Pyjamas in the storm 45 The Christmas trades 46 Paradise 47 The way back

Sebastian Smith has been a foreign correspondent for 30 years, for AFP, The Economist, The Times and others. He has covered wars, natural disasters, countless elections, and stories of human life from the Amazon rainforest to Siberia. At the age of 30 he took to the sea, and since then boats and voyaging have been at the heart of life with his wife and daughters. He has written for SAIL in the US and Practical Boat Owner in the UK.

Sebastian Smith's advice on running away to sea is as sound as eight bells, but he gives us so much more – a chart of how life can be lived to the full, 'as trespassers, forever tiptoeing in wonder through the house of God'.Smith goes beyond telling us how. He also tells us why, and nobody does it better.

• List of boxes Introduction: my story – your guide PART ONE Aquila: the escape capsule1 The dream 2 Kitchen table voyage 3 ‘Do you realise?’ 4 Miracle 5 ‘Out there’ 6 Child’s play 7 The schooner 8 The seahorse 9 The Trap PART TWO Shamaal 2: losing sight of land 10 The Odysseus problem 11 Faith 12 Tea for two 13 Nightriders 14 Hallucinations 15 The sea at the middle of the earth 16 ‘Gens de la mer’ 17 By the wind 18 ‘A double plane accident’ 19 Shelter from the tempest 20 A weather forecast 21 The end of the endless voyage 22 A gentle zephyr 23 Small journeys, big journeys 24 The goodbye PART THREE Moon River: the dream maker 25 The Statue of Liberty 26 Back of the napkin 27 Dream boat 28 Dream maker 29 On a cloud 30 The map of breakdowns 31 No rest for the wicked 32 Reveries 33 Into the blue 34 Beauty and the bucket 35 The middle of nowhere 36 The beasts of the sargassum 37 Debris 38 Wild islands 39 Fugitives 40 Back in time 41 The whisky drinker’s dream 42 Into the bolongs 43 The hippy and the pilgrim 44 Pyjamas in the storm 45 The Christmas trades 46 Paradise 47 The way back