THIS IS THE DIARY of a British sailboat's passage up the US Intracoastal Waterway, observing America's lifestyle, history and cultural paradoxes and written with gusto and empathy. It's a well-crafted book steeped in the euphoria of travel and ending with some sober thoughts on the demonic 9/11 attack on New York City. A fascinating insight into early North American history set against the backdrop of a boating adventure along the eastern seaboard from Florida to New York. MOST PEOPLE EXPLORE North America from coast-to-coast. Others journey up the eastern seaboard's Intracoastal Waterway -- with its tricky ocean inlets, shallow estuaries, violent climate - and have a very different perspective. This is the fractured landfall along which intrepid sixteenth and seventeenth century colonists from England first set foot in the New World after crossing the Atlantic. In some places the coast is still a raw, impenetrable wilderness; in others, the orderly symmetry of restless humanity encroaches. A delightful and informative read...

Ewan Marshbanks' stellar career as nomadic journalist ends in divorce, prostate cancer and his newspaper's demise. He flies to Florida where he meets Tad Wainwright, delivery skipper of a luxury yacht bound for the America's Cup in Auckland. Would he join the crew as interpreter and first mate? Carpe diem old man, says the jaded soul. But skipper and vessel have irksome habits: sexual dalliances...a delinquent engine. In Jamaica, Tad falls for a voluptuous mulatto beauty with blue eyes and delays their departure. Enter Lavinia, the 79-year-old owner's wife, who sacks Tad and hires a new captain. They sail for the Galapagos where backpacker Pierre - newly recruited in Panama - tours the bordellos and falls for a hooker. They encounter giant whales and vast dolphin migrations in the heaving swells of the Pacific. On night watch, Ewan drifts into periods of introspection in a quest for spiritual rebirth. A few days later - mysteriously - Lavinia vanishes. A French air force Atlantique helps the search. Ewan suspects murder...