Family Afloat: Two Years Sailing the World with Two Kids and Two Captains

by Jim Toomey

For over twenty years, Jim Toomey has been bringing the sea into the homes of millions of newspaper readers through his comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon. In 2015, his wife, Valerie, talked him into buying a sailboat and going to sea with their two kids and the family dog. Like most of his wife’s ideas, this one required a strong dose of optimism and an appetite for adventure.

Join the Toomey family as they forsake their comfortable lives on land and embark on a 22-month odyssey, visiting 32 countries, crossing an ocean, and homeschooling two children along the way. This travel memoir is richly illustrated with drawings and maps and filled with practical advice for those planning their own adventures and armchair travelers alike.

Jim Toomey is an internationally published humor writer and syndicated cartoonist best known as the creator of the popular comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon, published daily in over 150 newspapers, including The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune.

322 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2022

About the author

Jim Toomey is an internationally published humor writer and syndicated cartoonist best known as the creator of the popular comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon, published daily in over 150 newspapers including The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. Jim has produced 28 Sherman’s Lagoon books, published by Andrews McMeel, and most recently a travel memoir, entitled Family Afloat, about his two years sailing the world’s oceans with his wife and family.

Sherman's Lagoon combines two of his lifelong interests: art and the sea. In addition to drawing his comic strip, Jim is active in ocean conservation and serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Jim has given talks at a variety of venues, including the Royal Society in London, Harvard University and twice at TED. The conservation message in his comic strip earned him the Environmental Hero Award in 2000, presented by NOAA “for using art and humor to conserve and protect our marine heritage.” Jim won the award again in 2010.

Jim holds degrees from Duke and Stanford. He currently lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife and two children, where he tries to get his family back on a sailboat as frequently as possible but can rarely make it happen.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

The next best thing to packing up and sailing away is Jim Toomey's Family Afloat. Part travel-log, part personal development story, the scenes and settings are a journey through the Mediterranean and beyond. From riding out hair-raising storms to meeting the characters along the way, Family Afloat is a great read.

[Jen Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, engaging travel memoir. The book has humor, heart, adventure, danger, and offers a chance to live vicariously through this family's exploration of places I wish I could visit (west coast of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean). I highly recommend it.

Note that the author is also the creator of the daily syndicated comic strip Shermans Lagoon.