Hey, it's NPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. If you and your partner have ever been

traveling together and things have gone awry, it can be a bit of a stress test on your relationship, right?

You're both grumpy, maybe a little hungry. It's the perfect recipe for snide little pot shots at each other.

Next time that happens, I want you to think

of the Baileys. They're the couple at the center of today's book, A Marriage at Sea. It's a nonfiction

book by journalist Sophie Elmhurst about this couple in the 1970s who decided to sail around the

world together. I'm putting it lightly when I say, things don't go as planned. Elmhurst talks to

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about how the couple stuck together and what the bailies can teach

all of us about being a partner. That's coming up. In the U.S., national security news can feel

far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

The new book, A Marriage at Sea, is about a married couple who decide to quit their jobs, sell everything they own by a boat and sail around the world.

This is a true story. Morris and Marilyn Bailey set off from England in 1972. All went great until in the

Pacific Ocean, about 300 miles from the Galapagos, a whale knocked a hole in their boat. It sank.

The Baileys managed to scramble onto an inflatable rubber life raft and dinghy, no radio, no motor. They floated, hoping to be

rescued for weeks, than months. Author Sophie Elmhurst told me they had managed to grab a few cans of

food and what else? A couple of books, a first aid kit, a few essentials, some remaining water that they

had. And that's it. They have

nothing else. Marilyn, by the way, doesn't even know how to swim. That detail blew my mind,

that with all of their extensive preparations, she didn't know how to swim before they set out

to sail the world. I know. I know. But I think what you then are faced with them, what you realize is that there's the kind of immediate physical urgency of survival, right? They had to figure out how to catch the rainwater in order to drink, in order to stay hydrated. Then they had to figure out how they were going to eat once these few tins they had ran out. they were catching fish, turtles, sharks, they were

...