Committed to the Deep: Stories and Memoirs Creative Publishers, 1999 To Order Book (Go to site) Robert Parsons - Newfoundland Author

Often books have a unique way of getting started, and once underway they to take on a life of their own. Some time ago seem I searched my two-three hundred files on shipwrecks to determine which stories had not been published. I found several unusual (and unused) sea stories which I knew deserved to see the light of day. In addition to those stories, I had a number of interviews with seamen on tape or handwritten. I realized that not all interviews or stories were suspenseful accounts of heroism or great hardship, but they were dramatic first-hand narratives of a by-gone way of life. These, I believed, deserved to be in print.

Several selections in Committed to the Deep: Stories and Memoirsare accounts of wrecks or unsolved mysteries of the sea. Other stories relate how ships were built, paid for, managed, used, or eventually sold. Stories also range from short journal notes taken from log books or minute books to the longer, more personal anecdotes of life on the sea.

Stories from our People

Have you ever said, or heard someone else say, "I wish I had taped grandfather's or grandmother's stories!" If there is one message the author would leave with readers, it is just that: Record and preserve the tales of our ancestors, the link between their past and our future.

What Can I Expect in "Committed"

Committed to the Deep: Stories and Memoirs has thirty-nine stories -- thrilling tales of the sea for all of us -- as told by our forbearers. Stories about: How a Man and his Schooner Survived the Tidal Wave; Crew from St. Joseph's Lashed to the Masts off PEI; Burin's Mystery of the Deep; Wreck of the First Dragger on St. Pierre; Derelict Sails into Port, but What Happened to the Crew?; Reluctant Captain at Age Nineteen; A Near Riot Caused by Potatoes!; "Julia A. Anderson" Disappears; Handling Prohibition Liquor off New York; Sixteen Days Adrift; Ship Struck/Sunk by Lightning: Three Eye Witness Accounts; and many other sea stories.

Read, as they tell it, yarns and anecdotes about: collision at sea, disappearances, house wrecked by a schooner, fire and explosion, driven across the ocean and into Scotland, lighthouses, St. Pierre, rescue in mid-ocean, a kedgie's work, a woman's heroics, the Greenland armed escort and much more.