Jeff’s Reviews > Survive the Savage Sea by Dougal Robertson > Status Update
Jeff
is 79% done
..the whale coming to the surface and blowing occasionally, the spray from its vent drifting across Lucette in an evil-smelling mist until Lyn, holding a handkerchief to her nose, shouted "Go on the other side, your breath smells!" As if it had heard, the whale dived...the peculiar rolls were repeated, until, tiring of Lucettes lack of response to this most pressing courtship, the whale dived steeply and disappeared.
— 1 hour, 45 min ago
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Jeff’s Previous Updates
Jeff
is 88% done
I think it is probably a help to others who are afraid, if one can conceal the outward evidence of one's own fear, but it is better to work quickly even if the appearance of haste gives the impression of fear if the loss of time also involves the loss of lives.
— 17 minutes ago
Jeff
is 88% done
The closing section is devoted to a critical analysis of survival techniques--could this be any better?
— 40 minutes ago
Jeff
is 82% done
The detour to relive navigating to Fernandina and Galapagos is a little confusing in context of the "coincidence" chapter, which seems to really only refer to the final couple of paragraphs, but it reminds us that the voyage was a peaceful adventure, with the one notable exception.
— 50 minutes ago
Jeff
is 79% done
Not throughout, but a poet when he wants to be: "...deep, sea-green pools and scarlet crabs sparkled the black rocks like a primeval rash. Nearer to us, on a tower of rock isolated from the clifiF, black marine iguanas lay piled on each other in motionless heaps, intertwined like hideous black spaghetti, their dull wrinkled skin and toadlike heads belonging to another era."
— 1 hour, 2 min ago
Jeff
is 79% done
Robin had never lost hope of being rescued, and I had calculated the chance of being rescued to be so small that it could be discounted. A case of the statistician adopting the attitude which rightfully should have been mine, and of my adoption of an attitude which ought to have been his!
— 1 hour, 49 min ago
Jeff
is 79% done
Though they had four days on the ship to gradually increase their intake of (cooked) food, the starvation reaction doesn't seem to have afflicted them for as long: "...the consumption of large quantities of steak and eggs, with pancakes and waffles on the side, and ice cream to follow. (Douglas and Robin had three breakfasts each that morning, only one of which was supposed to satisfy a rancher!)"
— 1 hour, 51 min ago
Jeff
is 79% done
This far into the book and the author reveals that he was on a naval ship sunk during World War II, as if he wasn't coming off heroic enough. Mind blowing.
— 1 hour, 55 min ago
Jeff
is 77% done
I am impressed with everything about this book and the story it tells, but the most exceptional aspect is that these survivors didn't need to be saved. The rescue is a revelatory climax and the achievement is legendary: "My estimate of 8°2o' north, 92°45' west, without sextant, chart or compass, wasn't a bad guess after thirty-seven days adrift in the cross currents and trade drifts..."
— 2 hours, 17 min ago
Jeff
is 48% done
I knew from hard-won experience that where the land may be kindly to man, the sea was as impartial as the sky and that, in an environment where every other living creature had adapted and perfected its means of survival over millions of years, our chances of surviving among them lay in our ability to adapt our past experience to present circumstances.
— Mar 20, 2026 09:44AM
