Call Me Captain

For years Susan owned a sailboat the way most women own a motorcycle: She rode on it with her husband, and called it “ours,” but Honu had always been far more his than hers. When hormone storms, career doubts and a floundering marriage shattered Susan’s fairytale life in Hawaii, at 56 she took ownership of the couple’s neglected 37-foot ketch, learning to repair, refit and sail it in Hawaii’s rough waters. A year later, she invited her 28-year-old biologist friend Alex to crew for her and the two novice sailors shoved off for Palmyra Atoll, a National Wildlife Refuge 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. There, through her work as a biologist, Susan sought sanctuary in the marine animals that are her life’s passion.

In Call Me Captain, Susan shares the storms and gear failures of offshore sailing, the confusion of midlife changes and shifting marriage roles, and the magnificent world of marine biology.