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When the fishing vessel La Conte sinks suddenly at night in one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and record ninety-foot seas during a savage storm in January 1998, her five crewmen are left to drift without a life raft in the freezing Alaskan waters and survive as best they can.
One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission. As the crew of the La Conte begin to die one by one, those sworn to watch over them risk everything to pull off the rescue of the century.
Spike Walker's memoir of his years as a deckhand in Alaska, Working on the Edge, was hailed by James A. Michner as "masterful . . . will become the definitive account of this perilous trade, an addition to the literature of the sea." In Coming Back Alive, Walker has crafted his most devastating book to date. Meticulously researched through hundreds of hours of taped interviews with the survivors, this is the true account of the La Conte's final voyage and the relationship between Alaskan fishermen and the search and rescue crews who risk their lives to save them.
No profession pits man against nature more brutally than king crab
fishing in the frigid, unpredictable waters of the Bering Sea. The
yearly death toll is staggering (forty-two men in 1988 alone); the
conditions are beyond most imaginations (90-mph Arctic winds,
25-foot seas, and super-human stretches of on-deck labor); but the
payback, if one survives can be tens of thousands of dollars for a
month-long season.
In a breathtaking, action-packed account that combines his personal
story with the stories of survivors of the industry's most
harrowing disasters, Spike Walker re-creates the boom years of
Alaskan crab fishing--a modern-day gold rush that drew hundreds of
fortune-and adventure-hunters to Alaska's dangerous waters--and the
crash that followed.
For thousands of years Alaska has called to us. The hardy souls who first answered that call endured bitter temperatures, maddening isolation, and often harrowing adventures for the privilege of living there, and many lost their lives in the process. From the earliest human explorers to Russian fur trappers, from Klondike gold seekers to today’s miners and oilmen, from Alaska’s native people to the millions of tourists who visit the state every year, people have come to Alaska to marvel at its beauty, rejoice in its riches, and measure themselves against its challenges. The wonder of Alaska, as well as its terrifying dangers, come to life in this anthology, featuring true adventures described by some of the best writers in the world, each hand picked by bestselling writer and Alaska aficionado Spike Walker. Alaska: Tales of Adventure from the Last Frontier will open your eyes and stir your soul as it celebrates the untamed beauty of Alaska.
Inside you will find unmatched tales of adventure by the following authors:
Spike Walker Jack London Larry Kaniut Roger A. Caras Lew Freedman Dana Stabenow Gary Paulsen Jean Aspen Ann Mariah Cook John Muir Washington Irving
And many more...
A Malaysian cargo ship on its way from Seattle, Washington to China
ran aground off the coast of western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on
December 8, 2004 during a brutal storm, leading to one of the most
incredible Coast Guard rescue missions of all time. Two Coast Guard
Jayhawk helicopters lifted off immediately from Air Station Kodiak
during the driving storm in an effort to rescue the ship's eighteen
crewmembers before it broke apart and sank in the freezing waters.
Nine of the crew were lifted from the ship and dropped aboard a
nearby Coast Guard cutter. But during attempts to save the last
eight-crew members, one of the Jayhawks was engulfed by a rogue
wave that broke over the bow of the ship. When its engines flamed
out from ingesting water, the Jayhawk crashed into the sea. The
seven-crew members from the ship who had been hoisted into the
aircraft, along with the chopper's three-man crew, plunged into the
bitterly cold ocean where hypothermia began to set in immediately.
Interviewing all the surviving participants of the disaster and
given access to documents and photos, acclaimed author Spike Walker
has once again crafted a white-knuckle read of survival and death
in the unforgiving Alaskan waters.
Collected for the first time in Nights of Ice, these eight true
stories recount the harrowing ordeals of those who haul fish aboard
Alaskan fishing vessels. As workers in one of the world's most
dangerous - and lucrative - professions, the crewmen in Nights of
Ice face a constant onslaught of roaring waves, stories-high
swells, and life-stealing ice. Within seconds, a vessel such as the
forty-ton Tidings can fill with icy water and slip into the depths,
hurling crewmen into the freezing ocean and entombing the skipper
inside its sinking hull. A ship like the Mia Dawn can run aground
on a piece of submerged rock and immediately ice over, sinking
steadily as her crew, battered by hypothermia and ninety-mph winds,
assembles a life raft to await helicopter rescue by the U.S. Coast
Guard. Tested by the elements, ravaged by their own emotions, the
seamen in these extraordinary stories battle both fear and the
violent unpredictability of nature. As Spike Walker's deft
narration reveals, they do so with courage, instinct, and an
unrelenting will to survive.
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