About

“BEER IN THE BILGES” 

It was the beginning of the 1980s, after the sexual revolution and before the explosion of the electronic age.  The western world was in a time of prosperity that provided luxuries that the average person would not have known ten years earlier.  Travel had evolved into tourism and the unexplored world was gradually shrinking into a 1-800 list of Holiday Inns.  One of the few remaining wildernesses was the collection of islands of Polynesia scattered across the vast South Pacific Ocean – what better time for adventure?

 

Three sailors set off from different points in the world, unaware that a series of coincidences would bring them together in the tropical swelter of Pago Pago.  Alan was a wiry young engineer from Canada with a thirst for adventure.  With formal training in navigation and seamanship, he had exchanged his calculator for a sextant and signed on to a training cruise from Vancouver to Hawaii. He had a broad smile, a bushy ginger beard and a reputation for his resourcefulness.

 

Peter was a seasoned traveler.  Since leaving his home in the south of England at age seventeen to emigrate to Australia, he had spent almost half his life on the road, working when he needed to and traveling when he could.  He was a solid young “digger” with a woolly blond mop of hair and a gregarious nature.  The lure of a new adventure led him to join the crew of a classic wooden yacht in a race from Sydney to Fiji.

 

“Hollywood Bob” had a history of life on the sea.  From his home in New Zealand, where there are almost as many boats as sheep, he had made his way as a fisherman, sailor and ferryboat captain.  He was a rugged, imposing man, well over six feet tall, with sparkling blue eyes and white hair that belied his years.  Bob had spent time around the islands of Polynesia, both as a fishing guide and as a sailor.  He had been living in Marina del Rey, working as a shipwright on the yachts of Hollywood stars, when an offer to sail to New Zealand with Hal Holbrook re-kindled his passion for the sea.

 

Along the way the three encountered a variety of curious and peculiar characters and situations that you could not hope to concoct.  This collection of tales – all true – is an initiation to the reality of some of the remoter parts of the south Pacific.  You’ll meet “Sharkbite Charlie”, Rosie the 400-pound dancer, Gunter the mysterious German chef from South America, and witness a suspicious sinking, the supernatural art of weather forecasting and the perils of the giant squid.  A mix of humour and drama, these short vignettes will provide readers with a temporary escape from their world, whether curled up at home during a winter storm, commuting to work on the bus or train, or flying off on their own adventure.

 

“TWO IF BY SEA”

 

Two If By Sea is a novel of survival set on Manihiki Island, a remote atoll in the vast Cook Island archipelago of the South Pacific Ocean. In this contemporary story a group of sailors unite to defend the Polynesian island from refugees from a global bird flu pandemic.

 

As this book describes, the new strain of the bird flu was contracted by a worker from the Chinese countryside who was one of 70,000 volunteers that worked at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He was in contact with thousands of foreigners and infected many of them who in turn passed the virus on to others, many returning home before the infection was detected, spreading the flu across the world and resulting in an instant global pandemic.

 

 

The story explains how nobody from the Cook Islands attended the Olympics and also that the islands are not on the route of the continental migratory flyway so these islands are a sanctuary from the pandemic. The sailors were at sea when the bird flu was diagnosed and were therefore not infected. They are given sanctuary on Manihiki Island in return for their resourcefulness to help protect their Cook Island hosts and themselves from being overrun by people fleeing the chaos.

 

 

The drama, based on the real threat of a flu pandemic, focuses the reader from the global consequences of a bird flu outbreak to the microcosm of survival of an ancient tribal culture in the exotic South Pacific.

 

See more at 2ifbyseabook.com