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Book Review - Addicted to More Adventure Risk Is Good, Enjoy It
by Bob Shepton
Review by Ellen Massey Leonard, Boston Station
Who in their 86th year would sail throughout the islands and coast of Scotland, then England to the Canaries via Biscay and Madeira, and make yet another cruise of Scotland in the cold and gales of autumn? Of course, none other than the unstoppable polar sailor and mountaineer Bob Shepton.
The Reverend Bob Shepton, an ordained minister in the Church of England, has been traversing the high seas and making first ascents of formidable walls and peaks for more than 35 years. A climber first, it was natural that when he began sailing he would combine the two endeavors, just like the renowned Bill Tilman. Bob has been awarded the Royal Cruising Club’s Tilman Medal twice. In 1995 he received the Blue Water Medal for his circumnavigation of the globe via Antarctica and Cape Horn aboard his 33-foot Westerly sloop, Dodo’s Delight. But that was in some ways just the beginning. Most sailors know Bob today for his many sailing-to-climb trips to the most isolated regions of the Arctic, often with the “Wild Bunch,” a group of first-class climbers and all-around intrepid people.
A few years ago, Bob wrote an excellent book recounting many of his adventures. Addicted to Adventure: Between Rocks and Cold Places (London: Adlard Coles, 2014), opens with a disastrous fire during his winter on board Dodo’s Delight in the Greenland ice. It goes on to tell tales of pioneering routes on un-climbed cliffs, of a dismasting in Antarctica, and of a Northwest Passage transit, to name a few. But he left many stories untold. This new independently published book fills the gaps, and is available for purchase on Amazon.
Addicted to More Adventure: Risk is Good, Enjoy It begins with Bob’s early youth, in North Africa in 1954 with the Royal Marines. Evidently not finding the desert warfare training to be enough for his level of energy, he and two fellow Marines set off on a 50-mile trek across the hot desert to Tripoli. They covered those miles in one day, and even had time to drink coffee with a Bedouin in his tent. Today, adventurers completing something similar, would probably call it an ultra-marathon and make a bit of noise on social media. Not Bob. It was just a “yomp,” a hike, to him.
This kind of refreshing understatement characterizes the whole book. Whether he’s describing the frequent gales he and his young crew encountered on the long passage from Antarctica to Easter Island or the difficulties of landing climbers onto big walls from the deck of Dodo’s Delight in Greenland, he does so with humor, lightness, and understatement.
In addition to the high latitude stories, Bob tells us about a delivery to Peru, another from the Mediterranean, and exploring regions closer to his home in Scotland. The book ends with the trip to the Antarctic island of South Georgia that he made aboard Novara with Steve Brown. Throughout, Bob includes excellent photographs that add to the stories. Having read both books, I marvel that one person has packed so much superb adventure into his life. If you are not already familiar with Bob, and especially if you are, I urge you to read this book. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
