A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck

Lacking occupation, Maurice grows despondent, finding it hard to believe in survival without evidence. Maralyn tries to distract him by reading their two books aloud and telling stories: an American POW in the Korean War who designed a house in his mind to stay sane, and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, imprisoned for 15 years in a castle, not unlike being adrift at sea.

Maralyn initiates games, making a cat’s cradle, playing word games, and creating dominoes from logbook paper. When these prove impractical, she spends half a day making playing cards; they played whist on dry days. Realizing distraction is not enough, Maralyn begins talking about their life afterward. Maurice imagines a safe life in England with a house and garden, believing Maralyn will no longer want to sail. Maralyn reveals that she has been mentally designing their next boat, a sleek white two-masted sailing vessel. She persuades Maurice that their sailing life was their chosen existence, not a hobby to abandon after one mishap.

This gives them a project. Maralyn sketches a layout in her diary; Maurice calculates specifications and creates detailed drawings. They plan provisions endlessly. Maralyn’s diary fills with elaborate menus for dinner parties, breakfasts, and Sunday teas—multiple courses stuffed with vegetables, heavy puddings, cheese, and coffee. She lists the cakes she will bake for Maurice in meticulous detail.

On Maralyn’s birthday, April 24, they have been adrift for seven weeks. Maurice tries to catch a special silvery fish for a celebratory meal, but as he yanks it toward the dinghy, it breaks free, catapulting the hook back into the rubber below the waterline. Air hisses out. They quickly move the water containers into the raft so Maralyn can lift the dinghy while Maurice patches the puncture. After returning the dinghy to the water, they discover that a four-gallon container—enough water for four days—had gone missing.

For her birthday, they eat their last tin of rice pudding with treacle. The taste is sublime until they notice that the tin’s interior is red and flaking; the pudding is tainted with rust. Days later, the patch on the dinghy disappears, and the dinghy has to be pumped twice daily. 

On April 28, they wake in a hollow; the raft’s bottom tube has deflated from small holes caused by spinefoot fish spines. Following the repair instructions proves impractical in the pitching waves. The patch drifts away within a minute. They open their last condensed milk for energy and accept that they have to continue with the fatally weakened raft.

Sleeping becomes a new agony. They have to pump two or three times an hour through the night to prevent the sagging floor from trapping their bodies. On April 29, Maralyn writes of despair and little hope. Having filled her diary with menus and drawings—including designs for a brown velvet dress and camel-colored skirt—she tears pages from the logbook to continue writing. She secretly writes letters to June, expressing fears and truths she cannot tell Maurice. The act of writing fights loneliness and proves to her that she remains alive and sane.

As May begins, Maralyn records their depression and her sense that the end is near. The canopy is no longer waterproof, and their drinking water has turned green, making them violently sick. All their stored water is tainted, leaving only two one-gallon containers. A saved fish went bad, causing Maralyn to vomit all night. She searches for positives: their uninterrupted time together and the belief that their arguments deepen their respect for each other.

On May 5, storms allow them to collect fresh rainwater. They catch a turtle and tie it to the raft as a sea anchor, lifting Maralyn’s mood. The next morning, Maurice eats old turtle bait despite Maralyn’s warning and suffers diarrhea for days. On May 8—Maralyn’s mother Ada’s birthday—a sixth cargo ship passes, heading east without stopping. Maralyn declares the seventh ship will be their lucky one and calculates they can survive two more weeks on current rations.

For the next 10 days, it rains without stopping. Maurice develops a deep, rattling cough. On May 18, the sun finally returns. Just before noon, Maurice spots a huge white cargo ship with a blue hull—the seventh ship. They wave and shout until they are exhausted. The ship sails on.

They accept that they will not be rescued and that death is imminent, viewing it with resignation rather than fear. They briefly discuss the survivor eating the dead but find it too appalling to plan. Maurice considers ways to hasten their deaths—the gas bottle is empty, suffocation seems difficult, and Maralyn refuses to drown. Only the knife remains, but Maurice knows Maralyn’s will to live is too strong; some vital internal force will not let her surrender.

Maurice’s illness returns with a fever and severe chest pain. Maralyn tells him the pain is muscular, from pulling a turtle aboard, and encourages him to buck up. His condition worsens, and he coughs up a bloody mucosal lump he thinks might be part of his lung. His saltwater sores burrow deep into his spine, buttocks, and legs, becoming open, weeping wounds. Every time a shark collides with the raft’s base, he cries out in agony. Maralyn treats the sores with antiseptic cream and covers them with bandages, telling him the deep wound on his spine is only a small spot.

Maurice lies curled up, passing in and out of consciousness. Maralyn takes over all tasks: fishing, gutting, baling, pumping, and butchering a turtle. When she discovers it is full of eggs, she passes some to Maurice. The golden eggs have thick membranes and sticky yolks. They agree that female turtles are better than males, due to the eggs and larger livers.

Maurice feels better as May turns to June. On June 1, Maurice sees clouds rushing in and a massive storm approaching. They prepare the raft, covering books and fastening the entrance flap. The sky darkens, and a wall of rain glides toward them.

The storm batters them for days, blurring night and day into varying depths of darkness. The raft continually smashes into the dinghy. Maurice improvises a sea anchor from oilskin trousers, but it tangles with the dinghy and turns the raft’s entrance toward the oncoming waves. With the entrance fastening loose, Maurice has to sit up and hold the doorway closed with his hands.

On the morning of June 5, the waves are enormous, blocking out the light—the coldest and worst day since leaving England. Despite the danger, Maurice climbs into the dinghy to attempt fishing. As he packs up the gear after failing to catch anything, Maralyn sees an enormous wave rising behind her like a cliff face. The raft lifts impossibly high, and she sees Maurice far below in the dinghy, gripping the lifelines. The wave breaks directly over Maurice, flipping the dinghy and pulling him underwater. Trapped beneath it, he frantically swims to the side and surfaces. Maralyn grabs him and manages to haul his waterlogged body into the raft.

That night, Maralyn asks what would happen if the raft capsizes. Maurice tells her he does not think it would, but turning it back over in seas like these would be very difficult—his way of saying their chances would be slim. They place their remaining tins, knives, and tin opener in a haversack and tie it to the raft.

After the storm, the ocean calms, and marine life returns: green turtles, ridley turtles, loggerheads, petrels, frigate birds, boobies, sea snakes, dolphins, and sharks. A squid lands on the raft and dries in the sun. They find more safety pins; Maralyn breaks one but successfully fashions a new hook from a small one.

Fish are now abundant—triggerfish, spinefoot, wolf herring, jacks, and huge dorados. Filleting the fish savages their hands; Maralyn considers dangling her bleeding fingers as bait. She develops a more efficient fishing technique, jerking the line to make fish bite harder. She plays a game, flinging caught fish across the dinghy and back into the ocean, convinced that they enjoy it and queue up to participate. She experiments with using turtle meat as bait and creates a fish trap from an empty kerosene container.

Boobies begin landing on their vessels. When Maurice hits one with a paddle, it regurgitates four whole flying fish, which he collects for dinner. They start killing boobies for food, wrapping them in towels and wringing their necks. One afternoon, Maralyn impulsively grabs a passing shark by the tail and shouts to wake Maurice. They catch and suffocate it in a towel. Immediately, Maralyn catches a second shark, which Maurice kills with a knife through its gills, then a third. Overwhelmed, they burst into hysterical laughter at the absurd horror. A booby lands during the chaos, and they catch and kill three more birds.

They feast on shark liver and bird meat. Maralyn skins a shark with pearly gray skin, intending to make a purse. The next day, the dried skin turns dull. She discards it overboard.

Toward the end of June, the days become hot and clear. They catch two small turtles and keep them as pets in the dinghy, watching them splash in tipped water like toddlers in a paddling pool. Conversation returns to their next boat and where to sail. Maurice suggests Patagonia, delivering a lecture on why the wilderness appeals to him—hard to navigate, battered by wind, and utterly isolated. Maralyn is quickly convinced and turns to practicalities: how to anchor in wild places, what to hunt, and what clothes they would need. Their existence settles into a strange but distinct life, complete with routines, habits, and pets.

Yet Maurice is often on the edge of consciousness. Death hovers close. On the last day of June, bright and clear, they fish and rest. Under the canopy in the raft, cooled by a southerly breeze, Maurice dozes. Close to death, he becomes convinced that a third person is in the raft. He sees Wayne, an American sailor, whom they met in Panama. Under layers of deep sleep, he senses Maralyn shaking him and calling his name. He is too far away to come back, too tired. He believes Wayne is there to help, so that he can finally surrender to the thick, dark, and peaceful sleep that feels like freedom.