Our little corner of the World
My Booklist for This Fishing Expedition Across the Pacific
One prerequisite for a long journey at sea is a box of books, both light reading and what some call heavies. My reading list centered on historical novels which could be found at used bookstores. The most unique use of a book was the inclusion of Adrift
in our life raft along with food, water, and extra fishing gear.
My offshore booklist:
Adrift- Stephen Callahan (1986) survival at sea in a raft
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914- David McCullough
Fatal Shore- Robert Hughes (1988) The settlement of Australia
Two Years Before the Mast – Richard Henry Dana- One of the finest sea stories ever
KonTiki – Thor Heyerdahl - another great raft story
Sailing Alone Around the World – Joshua Slocum – My fourth read of this classic
The Sea Wolf- Jack London
The Gulag Archipelago- Aleksandr I Solzhenitsyn (1973) to know the survival of the human spirit and the desire for freedom- a must read for those who doubt our American ideals. It is a difficult read when you are stuck on a boat 1000 miles from land.
Lonesome Dove- Larry McMurtry (1988) on my top ten novels of all time list
Typhoon & Other Stories- Joseph Conrad
Moby Dick- Herman Melville – the best American novel ever. No. 1 of top ten
The Maturin/Aubrey series- Patrick O’Brian – Pure satisfaction of good storytelling
Pride & Prejudice- Jane Austen
A Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage – John Ledyard (1963)
The History of the English Speaking Peoples Vol 1-1V- Winston Churchill – the forward to Vol. 1 is a magnificent synopsis of our rule of law from chaos to civilization
Along with this list were numerous books by Tom Clancy and other contemporary authors. Sometimes we traded books, VCR tapes, food items, and mechanical parts with other boats. The technique sounds easy but sometimes it took two or three passes to get the bag of goodies. The technique:
Put items to transfer in a box. Put the box in a double garbage bag. Inflate the garbage bag and tie it securely. Take an empty plastic bottle with airtight lid and tether it with a 20 ft. long string to the inflated garbage bag. Position your boat upwind of the receiving boat. Throw it all overboard and let it drift to the other boat which picks it up with a boat hook on the first pass. If the crew fails to grab it, the boat turns around and makes another pass, and maybe another.
Labels: Our little corner of the world
