Shapes on the Wind is the autobiography of David Lewis, one of the world's old sea salts and adventurers. An uncompromising participator in the varieties and vagaries of active life, he has ventured onto sea, land, and ice in every corner of the globe, investigating and testing the elements -- and himself -- for emotional and aesthetic potential. This account builds up a comprehensive portrait of a most unusual person in our present culture -- a person dedicated to experiencing life outside the usual value systems of money, material possessions, and conventional morality. His mistakes and misjudgments are many and freely admitted, yet we learn to tolerate and understand them as we move through his life story, realising that the gains could not have been achieved without some error.
He is truly an old man of the sea. Younger sailors, pioneers, and expeditioners should all know his story.
"David Lewis is a true original... his work on traditional navigation systems is already classic, and deservedly so. For me, it was fascinating to place the gathering of that material in the context of his life's experience. Which experience is also thought-provoking, in other ways. His approach to life, his anecdotes, his observations have more content than the published reminiscences of several contemporary sailors, perhaps better known than David but not nearly as honest or plain-spoken."
TIM SEVERIN "What an extraordinary man. An adventurer second to none. A storyteller who can give goosebumps when relating real-life experiences. I am what I am due in many ways to his mesmeric but totally understated tales -- of experiences that only he can relate in the way he does -- all with the humour and honesty that can only come from a man who has no axes to grind; who loves life; who is always wanting to know what is around the next corner; and who will never rest easy in a chair by the fire because there are stil
