Posted on 11/25/2013 7:47:39 AM PST by Travis McGee
Our own Matt Bracken, living the dream financed by writing about the nightmare America has become. Bravo!
Pingity ping ping ping!!!
Going back to Maine on my own boat is high on my bucket list. (Summer only!)
That’s outstanding! So no matter what happens, if you get to a coast, you have the skill to get on a sailboat and go anywhere. That’s a very nice skill to have.
Borders are funny. 99% of people associate international travel with TSA lines, passports, shots, visas, customs officials etc, all done in an airport or possibly a cruise-line terminal. But in any case, in a big hall surrounded by armed cops etc.
That is NOT what crossing a border is like from the sea. It’s virtually on “the honor system.” There are no foreign “coast guard cutters” guarding the coasts. You just sail in anywhere and drop anchor in any port, that is physically what can be done. They only know you have arrived in their country when you seek out their customs office to “report in.” They don’t find you, you have to find them! Otherwise, nobody knows. Naturally, you would be breaking the law if you failed to “report in.” But hey, that hasn’t stopped 20 million illegals from coming to America and living openly but illegally.
I know the names of every yard worker and office staffer from Crystal on down! I know where to find “extra” scaffolding etc. I love that place!
That’s why I’m a novelist. I can write what I can’t do. (And stay married.)
I’d much rather be writing standard “genre” thrillers about spy vs spy, mercenaries, drunken former detectives etc. But with the country coming down around us, what would be the point? So I try to shine the flashlight a few years ahead, to encourage more folks to understand where we are, and where we are heading.
If that photo doesn’t make your blood race and your pulse quicken, you are just not a sailor.
I have read you trilogy and found them to be entertaining and informative. It just too bad they take place in a country we love and not some galaxy far away. It would make them more of a fun read than a horror of what could happen.
On a happier note enjoy your cruising, there is nothing like the slush of water, and the flap of sails on a fair day.
I hope I am all wrong about my dismal outlooks. My desire is to be considered a washed-up hack writer of cheap novels that are considered a joke, in an America that is free and more prosperous than ever.
bkmk
That’s a lazy day cruising on the Chesapeake Bay. I work from home,but some days I work from “boat”. Love being on the water.
Yeah. The area from around Camden up to Blue Hill Bay or around Vinalhaven and North Haven—either north or south—maybe by Isle au Haut, and up to Northeast Harbor and Bar Harbor through one of several narrows is impossible to beat. I must have cruised it for 20 or 30 years, and almost every time you can find different islands to go ashore on. Or go back to one of your favorites. We try to get out to the White Islands every summer for a picnic and a walk around the rocks. Have to hitch a ride on someone else’s boat, now, since I’ve sold all of mine except the skiff and a turnabout for the wife to daysail.
If you could choose your schedule, how hard would it be to sail your boat around the southern tip of either Africa or South America?
We passed between Vinalhaven the island to it’s north. The next day we went ashore at Stonington.
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