Being shipwrecked stinks. A lot of ocean survival literature is about shipwrecks, but there is a certain sameness to most stories. “I was sailing along happily. Suddenly there was a boom or crash or water filling the cabin. I had to hit the eject button. Then I bobbed around in the sea for __ days until I was rescued.” In refreshing contrast, Elmo Wortman’s story serves up a major twist on that theme. Wortman, a divorced and disabled father of four living with his three youngest children in a hand-constructed “floathouse” in Southeast Alaska, set out in February 1979 with the kids on a routine trip aboard their sailboat, the Home. When they’re forced to abandon ship at night in near-freezing water, all hell breaks loose. Managing to make their way alive to shore, they begin a desperate race against hunger and exposure. Among their feats of hardiness, the Wortmans use shipwrecked scraps to rebuild a badly damaged plastic raft and clamber for miles over icy cliffs in utter darkness. How tough is this family? Simply put, MacGyver is a pale imitation of a Wortman. Typical American teens raised on cable TV and microwavable hot pockets wouldn’t have survived the first five minutes of this family’s nightmare. Ten days after the shipwreck, the two girls are left on the beach while father and son head out in the raft for one last push to a distant cabin, but a round of frustrating delays means their reunion may never come. Starvation, frostbite, gangrene—it’s all here in excruciating detail. Get ready to shiver.
*Note: This book was originally published as Almost Too Late; the reprint, retitled Four Against the Wilderness, is not available from large online booksellers. Therefore the Powell’s link we provide takes you to Almost Too Late info. To buy the Four Against the Wilderness edition, go to www.wortmanenterprises.com.
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