What is it like to wake up in a deserted cove and begin the day with a dive over the side of your boat into a warm sea?
Ernle Bradford tells usāand the four seasons of the year unfold as we follow him in his 10-ton boat Mother Goose around the coastline of Sicily.
He brings alive the people, the lonely villages, the summer storms and calms, and the ancient charm of the Mediterranean. The squalors and the beauty of the old city of Palermoāwhere he spent the winterāare vividly described. So, too, are nights spent fishing in small boats, evenings in harbour taverns, and all the tastes and smells of the south.
The Wind off the Island is not only a portrait of Sicily, but of the sea and of a way of life.
Praise for Ernle Bradford:
āIt has real poetry to it, a poetry of sea and sun, of departure and landfallā Times Literary Supplement āDetailed and interestingā - Kirkus Reviews