Remarkable stories of survival and courage on the high seas 'Amazing true stories...' Kay Cottee AO, First woman to sail solo and non-stop around the world HELL ON HIGH SEAS chronicles some of the most remarkable stories of survival and daring the world's oceans have ever hosted. Amazing feats of courage: some verging on madness, others where death is eluded through sheer bravery, determination and innovation - or even divine intervention? Maurice and Maralyn Bailey spent 117 days adrift in a rubber dinghy in the Pacific after their yacht was sunk by a whale. Five Mexican fishermen went to sea for a three-day shark-fishing trip and vanished - nine months later three of them reappeared. Ben and Elinore Carlin endured a hurricane-lashed crossing of the Atlantic in their tiny amphibious jeep, Half-Safe, the start of an incredible 10-year, around-the-world odyssey.
'Hell on High Seas' chronicles some of the most remarkable stories of survival and daring that the world's oceans have hosted over the past half century. Bizarre, unbelievable accounts of people who went missing and were given up for dead, only to miraculously reappear, apparition-like, months later.
This is a new and frightening insight into Japanese atrocities in the Second World War. The horrific conditions aboard hellships at sea are revealed including the torture, disease and massacre which characterised them.
Get ready for some zany romance on the high seas with Lucifer acting as your matchmaking host. Includes three previously published titles in one handy collection for your reading-and giggling-pleasure. Jane Davey’s Locket : Jane’s being dragged on a cruise by her grandma, who also thought it was a good idea to cast a love spell on her locket. Maybe that explains why she finds herself falling for a lion shifter. Bride of the Sea Monster : Watch out for those umbrella drinks. Not even one day at sea, and Sasha ends up accidentally married to a sea monster. Old Demon and the Sea Witch : A long time ago, Shax loved a sea witch, but was too dumb to admit it. It’s time for a second chance. A cruise through the tropics seems like the perfect place to rekindle things. Part of the Welcome to Hell series. Paranormal Romantic Comedy with Lucifer, demons, witches, shapeshifters, and even a sea monster (kraken!)
The modern image of the pirate is derived from Captain Charles Johnson's accounts of the cut-throats who sailed under the Jolly Roger. It was he who gave mythical status to the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. Using contemporary sources, Nigel Cawthorne now turns the spotlight on the reality of pirate life, revealing the truth behind the legends. It gives us an insight into the men - and women - their weapons, their ships, their unhappy victims and their hide-outs, including the capital city of the pirate 'empire', Port Royal in Jamaica - known as the 'wickedest city in the world'.
“The wind was blowing at hurricane strength-sixty-five knots and over-and increasing in the gusts to eighty knots. His boat was surfing on waves as high as a sixty-foot, six-storey building. . .Each wave that struck choked and froze him, the icy water working its way down inside his survival suit.” —from Close to the Wind by Pete Goss In Near Death on the High Seas, Cecil Kuhne collects some of the most terrifying and astounding experiences of sailors confronting the awesome, raw power of the sea. These tales-filled with everyday heroes and survivors-comprise a riveting and often breathtaking collection of extraordinary stories that show the terrible ferocity of the untamable ocean. Also featuring: • Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki- the historic and celebrated journey of the Kon-Tiki as it journeys across the Pacific. • Steve Callahan's Adrift- a solo sailor loses his boat in the Atlantic must survive in a five-foot life raft for 76 days, fighting off sharks with a makeshift spear. • Francis Chischester's 'Gipsy Moth' Circles The World-the stirring story of a one man's solo sail around the globe at age 65. • John Rousmaniere's Fastnet, Force 10-in one of the worst sailing tragedies in history, a massive rescue operation takes place amidst sixty-knot winds and forty-foot breaker waves.
In the late 1970s and early '80s, a cadre of freewheeling, Southern pot smugglers lived at the crossroads of Miami Vice and a Jimmy Buffett song. These irrepressible adventurers unloaded nearly a billion dollars worth of marijuana and hashish through the eastern seaboard’s marshes. Then came their undoing: Operation Jackpot, one of the largest drug investigations ever and an opening volley in Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs. In Jackpot, author Jason Ryan takes us back to the heady days before drug smuggling was synonymous with deadly gunplay. During this golden age of marijuana trafficking, the country’s most prominent kingpins were a group of wayward and fun-loving Southern gentlemen who forsook college educations to sail drug-laden luxury sailboats across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. Les Riley, Barry Foy, and their comrades eschewed violence as much as they loved pleasure, and it was greed, lust, and disaster at sea that ultimately caught up with them, along with the law. In a cat-and-mouse game played out in exotic locations across the globe, the smugglers sailed through hurricanes, broke out of jail and survived encounters with armed militants in Colombia, Grenada and Lebanon. Based on years of research and interviews with imprisoned and recently released smugglers and the law enforcement agents who tracked them down, Jackpot is sure to become a classic story from America's controversial Drug Wars. “The adventures, the long-gone economy, and the sting that ultimately brought them down and changed US drug policy are meticulously documented and lucidly spun…. Part New Yorker feature-part Jimmy Buffet song. . . . The result is adventuresome, lavish, informative fun.” —GQ “[A] rollicking story, Ryan manages to pack in one amusing tale after another.... Jackpot is a rip-roaring good read.” —Charleston City Paper “High times on the high seas: Investigative reporter Ryan recounts the glory days of dope smuggling and their terrible denouement.... A well-told tale of true crime that provides a few good arguments for why it should not be a crime at all.” —Kirkus Reviews “Reads like an international thriller. . . . chock-a-block with hilarious and hair-raising anecdotes of fast times.” —New York Journal of Books “[A] thoroughly researched account of Operation Jackpot, the drug investigation that ended the reign of South Carolina’s ‘gentlemen smugglers,’.... Ryan recreates the era with a vivid, sun-drenched intensity.” —Publishers Weekly
This companion for fans of the Napoleonic sea sagas offers maps of the novels’ streets, seas, and coasts, and much more. The tall-masted sailing ships of the early nineteenth century were the technological miracles of their day, allowing their crews to traverse the seas with greater speed than had ever been possible before. Novelist Patrick O’Brian captured the thrill of that era with his characters Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, who visited exotic locales in the service of the Royal Navy. From frigid Dieppe to balmy Batavia, they strolled the ports of the world as casually as most do the streets of their hometown. Packed with maps and illustrations from the greatest age of sail, this volume shows not just where Aubrey and Maturin went, but how they got there. An incomparable reference for devotees of O’Brian’s novels and anyone who has dreamed of climbing aboard a warship, Harbors and High Seas is a captivating portrait of life on the sea, when nothing stood between man and ocean but grit, daring, and a few creaking planks of wood.
Mystery turns to mortal danger as one young man’s quest to clear his father’s name ensnares him in a net of deceit, conspiracy, and intrigue in 1750s England. Caleb has spent his life roaming southern England with his Pa, little to their names but his father’s signet ring and a puppet theater for popular, raunchy Punch and Judy shows — until the day Pa is convicted of a theft he didn’t commit and sentenced to transportation to the colonies in America. From prison, Caleb’s father sends him to the coast to find an aunt Caleb never knew he had. His aunt welcomes him into her home, but her neighbors see only Caleb’s dark skin. Still, Caleb slowly falls into a strange rhythm in his new life . . . until one morning he finds a body washed up on the shore. The face is unrecognizable after its time at sea, but the signet ring is unmistakable: it can only be Caleb’s father. Mystery piles on mystery as both church and state deny what Caleb knows. From award-winning British author Tanya Landman comes a heart-stopping story of race, class, family, and corruption so deep it can kill.
