Messing About in Boats

(SHORT STORY COLLECTION) Danger lurks on the high seas, on the banks of a mythic river, and in a 19th century lumber port! Storms, collisions, abandonment, a fed-up ferryman, and Queen Victoria's birthday-they all mean terrible trouble for the denizens of this anthology. This book presents six rousing tales of courage, derring-do, and existential angst. These tales span many different genres: historical, fantasy, literary, and mainstream fiction. These stories will take you on six maritime adventures: DAMSEL IN DISTRESS: When the freighter Pacific Trading Victor loses a clutch of cargo containers overboard, all but one of the them sinks within a few days. The survivor, however, rides the currents toward the coast of the Pacific Northwest, toward the north-south shipping lanes Damsel, a forty-foot sailboat, is plying. Jack and Tina, the boat's owners, will soon have more to deal with than their inexperience. MOBY-STICK; OR, THE LOG: Sudden terror on the Pacific Ocean. He doesn't want to take the daughter of his father's most important customer sailing, but the old man insists. When she arrives in Newport, Oregon, for the trip, despite the chill summer day, she has on shorts and a bikini top-the perfect picture of a spoiled, clueless brat. His heart sinks. Can he survive the next three hours? What awaits beyond the jetties?THE SEDAN CRUISER: Crushed rock for water. Empty fuel and water tanks. Rust and malignant rot. Her final owner's splendid ideas, overwhelmed by his exhausting work schedule. Memories of sunny anchorages, of fresh paint, and of laughter. "The Sedan Cruiser" is a 570-word short short in which a "project boat" contemplates her past, her present, and what lays ahead. THE SECOND MATE'S CUP OF TEA: Queen Victoria's seventy-first birthday. An Englishman far from home and homesick. All he wanted was a cup of English tea. Served properly. On clean china. On clean table linen. In the small port of Garibaldi, Oregon, in the dining room of the town's finest hotel wh