Sabra's Atlantic crossing is a family adventure with an environmental theme. The travelogue is sprinkled with marine conservation sidebars which reflect man's changing relationship with the sea from the genesis of early myths (were mermaids really manatees? ) to the destruction of ocean resources in modern times ("The Scourge of Driftnets or Curtains of Death"). A constant through five centuries of Atlantic crossings is the wonder inspired by nature's diversity, the surprise of such oddities as the right and left handed Portuguese man-of-war. The 32-foot Chinese junk-rigged schooner traveling from Washington, D. C. to Sevilla, Spain, down the Potomac, across the Atlantic, and up the Guadalquivir, provides an expansive setting for reflection on the Ocean Sea and how it has changed, and remained the same, over the past five centuries. "I feel so small in an immense body of water - the distances were so great, I was going so slow, the wind and waves were at times so awesome, the depth of the water seemed infinite - and yet one small (and endangered) sea turtle swimming by became as important and as much a part of my life as the huge waves pushing Sabra around or the distant sun pointing the way to our destination. "