Shipwrecked for 13 days on a coral reef

by Murray Burt

Overview

I was singing when I went below at 4 a.m. after my two-hour turn at the wheel. I stowed a large chunk of "Best Irish Fruit Cake" and flopped down on the settee to catch a nap until 6. By this time hours at the wheel and the effects of the sun and wind of the previous days' sailing had begun to tell. It was only minutes after my head touch the settee that I was a sleep.
A crash somewhere about me brought me to half consciousness. Seconds later there was a more violent crack. The whole vessel trembled and lurched drunkenly. Commotion descended. Above the racket I heard Don yell: "Hell. We're aground Murray. We're aground."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940044718937
Publisher:	Murray Burt
Publication date:	06/11/2012
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	104 KB

About the Author

Murray Burt, 78, is a compulsive writer having retired as a newspaper editor and writer for 40 years. He started as a journalism cadet in New Zealand, moved to a job on Fleet Street, and before shipping to Canada in sailboats via the Mediterranean and a trans-Atlantic sloop delivery to West Indies, fore-decking and charter boat skippering.
When he was hired at The Globe and Mail in 1967, friends he had sailed with in the Virgin Islands (where he was wrecked for 13 days) regularly pressed him to crew for them. Ultimately, though city editor, he was leaned on to become the paper's specialty sailing writer.
In 1980 he was posted as managing editor to the Winnipeg Free Press.
Since leaving newspapers he has written Winnipeg's Ladies from Hell a centenary history of The Queen's Own Highlanders of Canada; The Intimate Sea. a sailing upstairs-downstairs novel of upper class cruising in the Med; plus a personal account of his coral reef wrecking and two books of poems (one light-hearted on "wicked" children. the other on romantic Commonwealth islands). Both are awaiting a publisher's blessing.