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    UP & DOWN the Ditch...with Murphy's Law: 2000 words
    UP & DOWN the Ditch...with Murphy's Law: 2000 words
    UP & DOWN the Ditch...with Murphy's Law: 2000 words
    Ebook155 pages37 minutes

    UP & DOWN the Ditch...with Murphy's Law: 2000 words

    By Jack M.D. Owen

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    About this ebook

    A cartooney and photographically illustrated book of anecdotes gathered following years of boat deliveries Up and Down the ICW [Intracoastal Waterway], sheltered behind America's Atlantic coast.

    No journey can escape that stowaway Murphy whose law 'Anthing that Can go wrong WILL go wrong', doubly applies to all things that float.

    There's also also a bonus  story: 'Blue Baron - Green Sailor' recording an eyewitness report of a 10-day slog from Palm Beach to New York, through a nor'easter. Hove to off Cape Fear a Russian spy trawler stopped by to have a look. The story is captured by a naive small boat novice whose years aboard Royal Navy ships, had not prepared him to crew with a boat skippered by the luckiest man alive.

    Enjoy - but knock on wood before you step aboard and set off for the wild blue yonder.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOld Book Shop Publication
    Release dateNov 29, 2016
    ISBN9780938673125
    UP & DOWN the Ditch...with Murphy's Law: 2000 words

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      Book preview

      UP & DOWN the Ditch...with Murphy's Law - Jack M.D. Owen

      Jack M. D. Owen 

      *Anything which CAN go wrong, WILL go wrong"

      Old Book Shop Publication

      Palm Beach, FL  33480

      ––––––––

      Copyright  Jack M.D. Owen  November 2013

      ISBN-10:0938673130

      ISBN-13:978-0-938673-13-2

      ––––––––

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any retrievable form system or transported in any form or means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or OTHERWISE  without prior permission of the publishers.

      ––––––––

      Old Book Shop titles

      Palm Beach – An Irreverent Guide

      Palm Beach Scandals – An Intimate Guide

      The Jekyll Island Enigma

      Midshipman Porter – In Harms Way

      David Porter, Philadelphia & The Barbary Pirates

      Up & Down the Ditch – With Murphy's Law

      The Yacht America in Florida's Civil War

      CONTENTS 

      Driving the Ditch with Murphy  Cartoons

      Riding the Atlantic Ocean  Photographs

      Nautical Glossary  "Go to the pointy-end and

      pull the uppy-downy rope"

      Introduction

      ––––––––

      The idyllic view of a vessel, whether rag-bag or stink-pot, gliding or tootling across any body of water, is something all shore-bound spectators observe with a twinge of envy.

      However, day-trippers and weekend sailors should be aware, an extended voyage on the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) from Miami to New York or visa-verso, holds many unseen hazards.

      Most causal spectators are unaware of the white-knuckle grip of the helmsman on tiller or wheel, with a 'deer-in-the-headlights' wide-eyed stare and butt-squeezing body-English urging the craft on course, against buffeting winds and tugging tides between  those inert, solid, channel markers.

      During the course of a dozen years or so while a freelance writer and/or antiquarian bookseller based in Palm Beach. Florida, I crewed with David Wilding, boat captain and picture-framer, a fellow Brit who was also bonkers about boats.

      Growing up, the escapades of C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower and  P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves were high on my reading list. In my goofy mid-teens I joined the Royal Navy – as a sea-going steward. It was more gold-braid and BS than swashbuckling adventure.  I realized early on – there's an awful lot of sea compared to exotic ports of call. However, it provided good background to work Up-stairs  or  Down-stairs when called upon in a spot of investigative reporting. [see Palm Beach Scandals – An Intimate Guide].

      David's frequently-sung morning wake-up song was "Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder". We reached a truce early on. He remained below-deck sipping tea and smoking his way awake, while I huddle in the wheelhouse or cockpit, depending on the vessel, creating cartoons of daily disasters...which make up this book.

      His exuberant outlook was inspired by tales of  T.E. Lawrence, his altruistic adventures in Arabia and subsequent service as an airman. David followed that particular hero by joining the RAF.  However, less publicly known was his admiration for the renegade writer Erskine Childers. The author of the classic sea-story The Riddle of the Sands (considered the first spy-genre novel) reputedly alerted Winston Churchill to Germany's hidden naval armada, preceding the outbreak of the Great War. But, there was a dark side to Childer's deeds of derring-do, which became his undoing.  An empathy for Irish rebels during 'The Troubles' led to his execution by firing-squad, for smuggling arms to Irish rebels.

      Which just goes to show, appearances can be deceptive.

      That pretty sailboat boat closing fast on the closing arms of a bascule bridge, may have lost control against the tugging tide, its engine conked out, the useless anchor-line snarled in a gordian knot around the flukes. And that attractive woman calling and waving gaily at the bridge-tender may be signaling: "The

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