Sea Legs

Sea Legs is a collection of nautical aviation vignettes covering the thirty-three year naval career of the author beginning in the US Naval Academy, naval flight training fleet squadron and test pilot duties as he advanced to the grade of Rear Admiral. The stories include his early fleet squadron experience as a "nugget" pilot on USS Oriskany, his selection to be a Navy test pilot (including the account of his first ejection from an out-of-control test aircraft), his fleet exerience in a fighter squadron based on the USS Lexington during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later on the USS Shangri La in the Mediterranean. This tour was followed by three cruises in the Tonkin Gulf on the USS Ticonderoga, (during which he ejected for the second time) USS Hancock and USS Bonhomme Richard during which he flew 167 combat missions over Vietnam for which he was awarded seventeen combat decorations. The vignettes also follow him through tours of duty in the Pentagon and cinCLantFleet staff, including his stint as the lead pilot in the movie, "Tora, Tora, Tora" flying off of USS Yorktown. Many of these vignettes are humorous, a few tragic, but all are exciting and serve to give the reader a good idea of what US naval carrier aviation was all about in the latter half of the 20th century.

From the acclaimed author of "The Great Blue Yonder" comes a funny adventure at sea, complete with all kinds of seafaring shenanigans from mistaken identities to incorrigible twin brothers who plan to stow away on their father's three-week cruise.

Three years after his return from the Alaskan wilderness, Guy Grieve was living on the Isle of Mull in Scotland with his wife Juliet and their two young sons. Sick of the weather, perennial colds and their increasingly routine lifestyle, they'd all been getting restless. Finally, Guy and Juliet broke in spectacular style - they re-mortgaged their house and bought a yacht. Her name was Forever. The plan? To pick up Forever from her mooring in the Leeward Antilles off the coast of Venezuela, and sail around the West Indies before crossing the Atlantic back to Scotland. This was despite the fact that Guy, skipper of the expedition, had almost no sailing experience. Travelling around the lush tropical islands of the Caribbean and up the waterways of America, the family had countless sublime moments as they discovered the freedoms of sailing - anchoring in deserted bays, night passages under star-studded skies, and entering New York by water, greeted by the Statue of Liberty. But there were also testing times as they grappled with seasickness and bad weather, coping with young children at sea and learning to run a large, complex boat. Far from being the idyllic escape they'd envisaged, the journey forced Guy and Juliet to draw on reserves of courage and endurance they never knew they had. Wry, funny and buccaneering, this is a compelling tale of bravery and endeavour, out on the open sea.

An autobiography of oceanographer Kathleen Crane.

The Emerald Duchess sets sail for the serene Caribbean, but the passengers are headed for the chaos of romance. Kelly Ridenour couldn’t be happier. She’s leaving the bitter Rochester winter behind and going with new friends on a fabulous vacation. Even better, her cabin mate is Natalie Chatham, the lovely lady of Kelly’s recent daydreams. Natalie Chatham has a golden opportunity. Among the other travelers is Didi Caviness, her ex. She and Didi collaborated on their fashion business and their private lives until beautiful—and young--Pamela Roche came along. Natalie wants to win Didi back, even if she has to use one of the oldest tricks in the book to do it. With the attentive, dashing Kelly playing along, she’s going to show Didi she’s got competition. Kelly agrees to the charade, planning to make it look real, very real. Seasick and sunburned, Didi watches Kelly woo Natalie and wonders if she’s finally missed the boat. Not even the captain knows where this ship is going to land! Lambda Literary and Golden Crown winner KG MacGregor creates a sea cruise like no other, with all the charm, passion and surprises that readers worldwide have come to expect.

From the award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash: an urgent, timely novel that follows an aspiring author, an outrageous book idea, and a lone journalist's dogged quest for truth in the Internet age. New York, 2005. Chinese expatriate Feng Danlin is a fiercely principled reporter at a small news agency that produces a website read by the Chinese diaspora around the world. Danlin's explosive exposés have made him legendary among readers--and feared by Communist officials. But his newest assignment may be his undoing: investigating his ex-wife, Yan Haili, an unscrupulous novelist who has willingly become a pawn of the Chinese government in order to realize her dreams of literary stardom. Haili's scheme infuriates Danlin both morally and personally--he will do whatever it takes to expose her as a fraud. But in outing Haili, he is also provoking her powerful political allies, and he will need to draw on all of his journalistic cunning to emerge from this investigation with his career--and his life--still intact. A brilliant, darkly funny story of corruption, integrity, and the power of the pen, The Boat Rocker is a tour de force of modern fiction.