winter reading

I am enjoying re-reading our Halcyon Days website. It was written in coves during our years living aboard our C-Dory. We wrote it primarily for folks wondering about living aboard and cruising distances with their C-Dory. You can click on it below.

Now that we have transitioned ashore after years living in a small floating home, it is fun to re-read experiences. It is not a "where to buy gas, where to anchor" tale. More about some great times, and how do you live aboard a boat, without a home, cruising new water all the time. Also, being a geologist, there are stories of geology you might cruise through on your boat. Why, you can cruise right through a meteor impact crater!

Free, sit in your comfy chair, and 'cruise' along on a C-Dory -- and pass a cold winter evening. Even read some kid tales about cruising with folks or grand-parents.
 
chucko":2e83n8a0 said:
The true story of Americans rowing in the 1936 Berlin olympicshttps://www.amazon.com/Boys-Boat-Am...d=1484177611&sr=1-1&keywords=boys+in+the+boat
The Boys in the boat is about how some boys in the Pacific Northwest came together in really tough times,highly recommend.
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Chucko,

That is a great book, true story, and Joe Rantz, one of the main subjects in the story, lived right here in Sequim. It was the main read I took with me on my trip north last summer.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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El and Bill":1uao0fsl said:
I am enjoying re-reading our Halcyon Days website. It was written in coves during our years living aboard our C-Dory. We wrote it primarily for folks wondering about living aboard and cruising distances with their C-Dory. You can click on it below.

Now that we have transitioned ashore after years living in a small floating home, it is fun to re-read experiences. It is not a "where to buy gas, where to anchor" tale. More about some great times, and how do you live aboard a boat, without a home, cruising new water all the time. Also, being a geologist, there are stories of geology you might cruise through on your boat. Why, you can cruise right through a meteor impact crater!

Free, sit in your comfy chair, and 'cruise' along on a C-Dory -- and pass a cold winter evening. Even read some kid tales about cruising with folks or grand-parents.
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We have done just as you describe several times & know we will again. Your sharing has enriched our lives & we appreciate & thank you for doing so.

Best Wishes,

Jay & Jo-Lee
 
I am re-reading "Halcyon Days Cruising America" on the Kindle APP. Great read and prep for a future trip around the "Great Loop". Thanks Bill and El.
 
Great Story

Book Title - Living High: An Unconventional Autobiography
NEWLYWED COUPLE HOMESTEAD AMONG SAN JUAN ISLANDS

http://old.seattletimes.com/special/cen ... /burn.html

June Burn and her husband Farrar enjoying first hand living and not surrendering to the routines of a workaday world. Through the years they had some high and glorious adventures, which included homesteading a San Juan Island, teaching Eskimos near Siberia, and exploring the United States by donkey cart with a baby aboard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojOI4B4mj8k
 
"Into the Raging Sea" by Rachel Slade is a riveting account of the El Faro sinking. The author has included the conversations on the bridge from the 26 hrs before the sinking as well as many interviews. The number of factors involved in the Captain's course decision is mind boggling. The book gives one a new perspective on the maritime industry.
 
I just started In the Heart of the Sea, the story of the whaling vessel Essex sunk by a sperm whale (a true story that inspired Herman Melville's ending of Moby Dick). Although the story of the Essex has been written about in the past, there was a recently discovered (1980's) text written by the cabin boy that shed new light on to the months that the few survivors spent in whale boats.

Lots of interesting background and history, but then the story starts out in February of 1821 with a sailing vessel changing coarse off of the Chilean coast to inspect what appears to be an abandoned whale boat. As they pass by, they can see that it is littered with human bones. Not skeletons. Bones.

Just in time for Halloween.

Mark
 
I just found this thread, love to read, and now have some great titles to look for. I will add two more:
"Where the Sea Breaks Its Back" by Corey Ford, the epic story of early naturalist Georg Steller and the Russian Exploration of Alaska.
"Fishing With John" by Edith Iglauer, living and fishing on a small salmon troller along the coast of BC in the '70s. Very well written.
 
Thanks, Karl. I just ordered both books.

I finished my last Patrick O'brien Master and Commander book today. I have the first 10 volumes in paperback if anybody is interested. Media mail is cheap. I should say that these might appeal most to those who have a sailing background. Also, I used my 12 volume encyclopedic dictionary set called the "New Century Dictionary" copyright 1888. All of the archaic sailing terminology (including illustration) was in it.

I'm sure that I can find the additional volumes of Patrick O'brien at my favorite used book store. I thought that the first 10 volumes were kind of a set. Nope. In volume 10, Captain Aubrey, a British officer, is shipwrecked on a South Pacific island with American Navy castaways (with whom he is at war). It isn't clear which are the prisoners, if anybody. I doubt that's where the story ends.

Mark
 
I just finished River-Horse, the C-Dory book up the Hudson, west on the Erie canal and lake, down a tributary and the Ohio, up the Mississippi and Missouri, down the Salmon, Snake, and Columbia. Plus a few other passages and portages. A good and fun read. Send me about $3.50 in stamps and I will mail it to you, and you can keep it. Or even better pass it on to some other C-Brat.
 
If no one else has taken you up on that offer, I certainly will. Please PM me your mailing address and I will have the stamps on the way. A trip like that was done in reverse in 1939 by Buzz Holmstrom when a lady hired him to row her across North America! Buzz Holmstrom from Coquille Oregon was the first person to row a boat solo down the Colorado. The story of his life is told in the book, "The Doing of the Thing" by Welch, Conley, and Dimock. An interesting story and a good read.
 
I'm glad I found this thread and the honest reviews of Riverhorse. I read it twice -- the second time to be sure it was him and not me. WLH Moon writes well and like any good travelogue, you wonder what's going to happen next and keep reading. But the end is anti-climatic and the overall sense of ennui is burdensome. It was less an exploration of the continent and more his recounting of a month's-long prison break that ended with recapture.

I will second the high praise for the entire Aubrey Maturin series, which I have read through at least 4 times. Book 21 was in process when Patrick O'Brien passed and the book ends suddenly, but not before the reader is drawn in and wants to know what happens next. Cruel, unfair, and capricious -- just like life in the Royal Navy. And for everyone, for that matter.
 
River-Horse is sent off to another reader.

By the way, guessing at the economics of it all, paying for postage both ways is close to ordering a used book on Amazon. Sending a book off to the next reader may cost that reader about half as much. Lesson, book sharing and paying for postage one way is a great way to get and pass on books.

ps - and besides recycling and sharing books with others is fun
 
RobLL":vy2kn0ci said:
River-Horse is sent off to another reader.

By the way, guessing at the economics of it all, paying for postage both ways is close to ordering a used book on Amazon. Sending a book off to the next reader may cost that reader about half as much. Lesson, book sharing and paying for postage one way is a great way to get and pass on books.

ps - and besides recycling and sharing books with others is fun
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Book rate?
 
About $2.75 for first pound and .28 per for the next pounds.

As a comparison, I mailed off all of my theology books to a 'pass along' site connected to our denomination and it was upwards of $25 for a 30 pound box. We mailed some of my MIL's papers and writings off to a brother and it was upwards of $70 for the same weight. This was 6-8 years ago.
 
Media mail is the way to go. I keep my favorites to send to my brother and he does the same. I can't believe the cost differential between sending him good books and sending him fresh salmon. My Master and Commander books are already gone.

Mark
 
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